In a letter to readers, Wenatchee (Wash.) World editor Cal FitzSimmons explained why the paper’s Wednesday headline said: “Bomb suspect in custody.”
“Ultimately, we at The Wenatchee World must take full responsibility for the thousands of newspapers delivered to our readers with that incorrect information,” Editor Cal FitzSimmons writes in a letter to readers.
The World sourced that article to AP’s report that authorities had detained a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings. The AP later retracted that report.
“At 11:13, The Associated Press had its bogus story on the wire,” FitzSimmons writes. “And we went with it.” The paper’s “presses had been running for almost a half hour” when AP corrected its report. FitzSimmons expresses dismay that, as he believes, “The Associated Press has sold its soul to the aggregators and search engine behemoths and its own digital ambitions.”
“The editor’s anger is perfectly understandable,” AP spokesperson Paul Colford tells Poynter in an email. “Who can blame him? I’d be mad, too.” He continues:
AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll said today that our readers would have been better served if we had shared that we had become less certain of what we were told about a person in custody.
We are chastened and wiser and carefully reviewing what happened.
Related: Confusion reigns in reporting of Boston ‘arrest’ | Major breaking news errors giving rise to new responses in Boston coverage
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