It should also be a good reminder to all of the people on HN who jumped to the conclusion that this guy was right on very sketchy evidence. This place is influential. We should do better.
Overall in that item I think HN did better than you imply, unless you mean the upvotes the item received.
Meanwhile, the shitty media outlets that irresponsibly spread this got all the ad impressions they wanted. The problem with truth is that its not as profitable as BS. How many people will ever read the corrections?
Reddit fared much worse, IMO, in that people continued to upvote the wrong story after the truth was out. The correction has been posted but isn't anywhere near the front page.