Then at 6:45 p.m., the original headline reappeared above an updated story with comments from Soros's spokesperson. Again, it's the same URL, however, the original lede is back, and it takes until the third graf before you realize that Soros is now denying the connection.

The story's editor, Claudia Parsons, took partial blame for the stuttering, dizzying nature of the updates. "All I can say is there was a technical glitch with story numbers on our internal system," Parsons told The Atlantic Wire. "That may have been a problem which is why you saw the other one. That was my mistake. I may have put the wrong number on there," she said referring to Reuters' content management system.

Reuters's editor for ethics and standards Alix M. Freedman indicated that updates like this one are quite common at the newswire. "We update stories all the time when we get more information," said Parsons. "As soon as the spokesmen for Soros provided us with more information we provided an update."

Freedman added that the updated story had been sent over the wires and uploaded to the website, but the original version would still be available online. At the time of this posting, we weren't able to find the original version or an editor's note, however Freedman alerted us that their online team was "having a technical problem, which it is working to fix now." (Update: Reuters now has two separate working links for the story. The updated version can be found here with this note on the bottom: "Recasts with comment from Soros aide, adds new details to clarify. The original version can be found here.")

As for the debate over the original story, Reuters welcomes it. "We encourage free and open debate in the media world and inside Reuters itself," Parsons said. We also asked if there was any debate about the original reporting being too thin before it was published. "Not that was brought to my attention," said Freedman. "I'm not aware of any."

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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