The ‘New York Times’ apology was a sorry attempt to right a wrong

SOMETIMES, the apology is worse than the offence, writes Terry Prone. 

That’s the truth of The New York Times’ mea culpa for a reference to Irish students and the J1 visa in an article about the Berkeley balcony collapse. They apologise for publishing something that was offensive only to the extent that it was misinterpreted by the reader. It was a concession, rather than a confession: the newspaper was sorry if readers got a particular impression from their report. It made things markedly worse.

It will be a validation of all that great newspaper stands for if it comprehensively addresses the problem it has created and, in the process, reminds itself, and the world, of its standards. The newspaper might start with the following draft: “The New York Times issued an apology last week. That apology was about a story on the young people who tragically lost their lives in the Berkeley balcony disaster. The apology was inadequate and offensive and this paper now revisits the issue to right a journalistic wrong.