TAL Retracts Apple Story

 

 TAL Retracts Apple Story
What happens when we get it wrong?
To me...this was always stunning. I put a lot of faith in my reporters and producers to get it right. I also had faith that our national providers were going to get it right.

This can be a learning experience. As a station manager I learned quickly that we needed to respond quickly and with a unified message. Do you have a policy in place to respond when this happens? What are they? Are you willing to share them?

No matter who is responsible for the mistake, from the listener's perspective it is the station's responsibility to respond. There were instances where reporters got it wrong. Usually a source was not fully vetted. Fortunately, we did have to deal with the fabrication of facts by our staff. Not only were corrections made, but the corrections resulted in more depth to the coverage. The hardenst part internally seemed to be that we made a mistake...at least early on. As managers we had to put those inclinations aside and fully investigate what happened. We found in many other instances that it was a matter of perception and not really a mistake. How we handled those perceptions was important.


To be clear, others have reported on the poor conditions at the Apple plant in China.  Jonathan Kealing  reporting for Public Radio International quotes Ira Glass, It had become impossible to separate what Mike Daisey actually knew from what he didn't, so the program was retracting the entire episode.

But in this case, This American Life is saying there were fabrications to the story.
Pulling it is the first thing. This American Life is meeting the issue head-on. Admitting errors and then, hopefully, moving on. TAL has a retraction and an episode in place about the issue at it's website.

Do you have policies in place to handle issues like this at your station?
What are they.  Please share your thoughts.