The Atlantic fully retracts story by Ruth Shalit Barrett | Hacker News Reader

The Atlantic fully retracts story by Ruth Shalit Barrett

theatlantic.com

31 pointsjawns11 comments

What a stupid outcome. They had a well written feature article that has lit up a sore place: Everyone wants a good future for their kids. No one has all the answers. Attempts to improve chances of getting into The One Best University are nuts.

And then, to have to flush the whole feature, to say nothing of a career, over lies that honestly didn't need to be there... WTF?

The Fear of under achievement, destroying legitimate accomplishments... Exactly what the article was trying to discuss. The author is the story here.

Here is the archive copy of the original article from October 18th: http://archive.is/t944D

And here is the version with the editors note from October 31st: http://archive.is/e8YX7

I noticed something very odd in the retraction:

"The original version of this article stated that Sloane has a son. Before publication, Sloane confirmed this detail to be true to The Atlantic’s fact-checking department. After publication, when a Washington Post media critic asked us about the accuracy of portions of the article, our fact-checking department reached out to Sloane to recheck certain details. Through her attorney, Sloane informed us that she does not, in fact, have a son. We independently corroborated that Sloane does not have a son."

I really hope this is not how any fact checking organization works. It appears the fact check was to ask the person whether the fact was true. If this was relatively crucial fact, couldn't they ask for some kind of evidence? I'm truly astonished at how bad some media outlets can be.

It's a bit different here than with a regular fact check from a fact checking organization. This department has a cooperative relationship with the author, not an adversarial, investigative one. They're acting almost as support staff: ensuring there are no errors, making sure they're in the clear legally, etc. Detecting fraud is a component, but it's not the main goal.

Is anyone here associated with the industry? Can they meaningfully indicate how often this sort of thing occurs? How much bad faith is typically involved?

The lying and fudged details in the article, or do you mean actually calling it out and issuing a retraction?

Reminds me of Stephen Glass, who published a series of false articles in the New Republic in the 1990s https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2014/11/12/read-the...

Let me really blow your mind - she was there and went through the same thing, this was her first mainstream resurgence since then, years later, and now suffice it to say this is probably her last article

Article explaining is here: https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/273495/goodbye-to-al... - subtitle "Has former New Republic starlet Ruth Shalit left Washington in the dust--or is it the other way around?"

Surprised I got downvoted, curious, was it because there wasn't any evidence?

Wow. I live in Washington, I read the papers, and I completely missed all this. I guess it was after the days when I read The New Republic.

What an impressive waste of an Ivy League education... and from Princeton no less.

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