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Comment by mcrae | Hacker News Reader

>> Corrections & Amplifications An earlier version of this article incorrectly included the name of a defector familiar with North Korea’s cyber training, whose identity was included in violation of the agreement with the source. (April 19, 2018)

Yikes!! I understand mistakes happen, but what an absolute betrayal of trust

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I don’t usually think someone should be fired for mistakes but this is so egregious. How does their name even end up in a draft, much less the published article? How will the convince anyone considering discussing something anonymously with the paper to move forward with a screw up like that?

The first thing anyone who is not asleep at the wheel would ask is, “does this person really want to be named?”

We are all human and humans make mistakes. While a devastating action, it was likely a process that failed rather than an individual being inept.

We hope there is a process. We can be sure that several individuals were inept. The journalist certainly knows the source wished to remain anonymous, and an editor certainly had to approve that.

Given all the down-votes, seems I am a sucker to give them the benefit of the doubt and not join the crowds calling for heads on plates. How dare I attempt to have faith in humanity.

So, if I make a mistake that puts you and your family on a hit list of a murderous dictatorship, you'd be cool with it?

Of course not. But having someone sacked won't reverse the mistake or prevent this happening again. It was a terrible, terrible mistake, but the absence of malice here should be considered.

Absence of malice is nice, but what should be considered more highly is the absence of care.

Remember, this error probably will get people killed.

A rapid & public sacking may not reverse the error, but will have at least some preventative effect -- some people learn from the mistakes of others.

Of course this should not be the only step, and they should also add processes & procedures to help make it more difficult for this error to get through again (default to no names for sources?, second set of eyes asking for every source?)

Yes hyumans make mistakes. And those mistakes have, and should have consequences.

When the likely result is to get someone killed, there should be serious consequences for the people, regardless of whether it was 'people' or 'process' that you put at the top of the fault chain.

That is the way it works in the real world. Small bits of inattention can lead to death. We don't say that 'it was just a small thing' when someone is texting while driving and crashes and injures/kills people, even tho it was just a a few seconds lapse of attention.

This source, and/or his family back home are now likely on a NK hit list. The employer has now had it's credibility for confidentiality destroyed for a decade. This lapse should have consequences.

(And if you don't like the potential consequences, either make sure you play the game right, or don't play the game.)

I'm not sure I understand your comment in full, but I wasn't suggesting there be no consequences for this mistake. I also don't see it in any way trivial. Sacking people is easy and a quick fix but what change was actually made to ensure this never, ever happens again.

Humans make mistakes, processes or the lack thereof allow them to happen.

When mistakes of a certain threshold happen, the organization should have a post-mortem to ensure such a scenario does not recur.

In addition, the person who failed should hold their own post-mortem in private, with the possible addition of a supervisor to determine how they failed, if at all, and how they can use the incident as a learning experience.

"Blame process, not people" is great in that it encourages folks not to pillory someone for a mistake that they themselves could have possibly made, but it is not a "Get out of jail free" card.

Humans make mistakes, but this was a mistake at multiple levels. The name shouldn't have been in a draft, certainly shouldn't have been anywhere near the final piece, and probably should have been caught by an editor.

It’s probably basic CIA move, you want to take out somebody from there, you “accidentally” cite them as source. It doesn’t matter if it just creates confusion and uncertainty there or complete removal of that person, you win in any case; if it’s temoval - it’s a big win.

The news business can no longer afford nonessential investments in institutional pride and professionalism, like copy editing.

Reminds me an article on Gerard de Villiers [1]

He was a French pulp spy novels writer (SAS), who turned out to be some kind of mailbox between intelligence services to share spy stories. So a lot of his books are directly inspired from real stories, with names changed. Until he forgot to change the name of a CIA station chief...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/magazine/gerard-de-villie...

Wtf. And why even include the name in the first place? Literally no good would have come from that in a story like this. If you must refer to a name use a pseudonym.

This really subtly shows one of the darkest sides of journalism, especially considering it's coming from the WSJ. The engagement of the audience and ad revenue is so important that protecting sources and journalistic integrity is so easily forgotten by the author and editors.

This is something that should never ever happen. Where are the checks and where is the oversight?

What has become of this paper?

You mean since Rupert Murdoch bought it or some other event?

That correction is making it worse. Now they might search for cached versions. Ugh, serious mistake.

One hopes the page hasn't been cached anywhere

This is one of the problems with paywalls - I regularly see a full article posted in reddit comments and I doubt they're checking for corrections like this later on.

I think that it's safe to say that once the cat is out of the bag, there's no way it's going in again.

It has been unfortunately.

Can you try and at least send them an e-mail asking them to clear it?

Good idea. I’ll try it.

This can get your entire family sent to a work camp. SERIOUS misstep there.

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