The New York Times and ProPublica aren’t the only outlets amending their reporting on Gina Haspel, who was nominated to be the director of the CIA last month. Both outlets reported that Haspel oversaw a prison in Thailand when Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al-Qaida terrorist, was waterboarded, but she only took charge of the prison after Zubaydah’s waterboarding.
NPR aired its own correction for reporting on the now-known-to-be inaccurate ProPublica report, NPR public editor Elizabeth Jensen reported. NPR’s audio correction, featuring an interview with ProPublica’s editor-in-chief Stephen Engelberg, was four minutes long and characterized by Jensen as “major.”
NPR also posted online corrections and editor’s notes, added a correction to its archived report on Haspel and published a news story about ProPublica’s correction.
Corrections included this March 16 correction for an All Things Considered report:
“During this conversation, journalist Raymond Bonner discusses his reporting for ProPublica. His story asserted that Gina Haspel, who has been nominated to be the next CIA director, played a role in the treatment of al-Qaida suspect Abu Zubaydah during interrogations at a “black site” in Thailand and that she had “mocked” Zubaydah. On March 15, ProPublica issued retraction, a correction and an apology. Haspel was not in charge of that black site at the time of Zubaydah’s interrogations and had not mocked his complaints about the treatment.”
and this March 16 correction:
“During this report, we say that Gina Haspel ran a black site prison in Thailand where al-Qaida suspect Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded. She did run that site for a time after the Sept. 11 attacks, but as ProPublica has now acknowledged in a retraction of its reporting, she was not there when Zubaydah was waterboarded.”
and this correction:
“In the audio, as in a previous Web version of the story, we say that Gina Haspel ran a black site prison in Thailand where al-Qaida suspect Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded. She did run that site for a time after the Sept. 11 attacks, but as ProPublica has now acknowledged in a retraction of its reporting, she was not there when Zubaydah was waterboarded.”
“In this report, we say that Gina Haspel ran a black site prison in Thailand where al-Qaida suspect Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded. She did run that site for a time after the Sept. 11 attacks, but as ProPublica has now acknowledged in a retraction of its reporting, she was not there when Zubaydah was waterboarded.”
“Editor’s note on March 16: On March 14, NPR broadcast this conversation with journalist Raymond Bonner about his reporting for ProPublica. The subject was his report claiming that Gina Haspel, who has been nominated to be the next CIA director, played a role in the treatment of al-Qaida suspect Abu Zubaydah during interrogations at a “black site” in Thailand and that she had “mocked” Zubaydah. On March 15, ProPublicaissued retraction, a correction and an apology. Haspel was not in charge of that black site at the time of Zubaydah’s interrogations and had not mocked his complaints about the treatment.”
Jensen’s post wasn’t all praise for NPR’s corrections, though, calling for more on-air corrections when necessary and for NPR to stop cutting out errors from on-air programs without disclosure. “NPR continues a practice I find troubling, that of ‘stealth’ corrections even for major errors,” she explained. “These are on-air mistakes that are caught at the time they are made and then simply cut (or ‘bladed’) out of the subsequent re-broadcasts of the piece (NPR pieces repeat multiple times, including across time zones).”
iMediaEthics wrote to NPR, which noted the post covered the issue and Haspel corrections.