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There are a couple of things going on here. First, there's a difference between malpractice and a mistake, even a serious one. The problem with the rolling stone incident, as I understand it, was that the editors failed to take the most basic, widely recognized steps to ensure integrity in a situation where they were unusually essential. There's a difference between making a mistake as a lawyer, for instance, and breaching ethics, basic procedures, or committing "gross incompetency" in a way that gets you disbarred. Furthermore, there's a huge difference between temporary disbarment and becoming a pariah that never works again in the field. Now, law isn't journalism, there isn't a "bar" or a specific concept of disbarment, and rules are looser in journalism. But the journalists and editors behind this story do seem, by the standards of their profession, to have committed far more than a mistake. This was really, really serious, and goes deep into gross incompetence and breach of ethics. In spite of this, and how outrageous it was, I do think the day could come where they'd be reasonably welcomed back into their profession as full members. But this was really serious, and I do think removal from their positions, and an extended period of working as a proofreader under the supervision of a journalist with a better track record, certainly isn't unreasonable. In fact, it might be the sort of thing that would actually help the journalists and editors to re-enter their field again in the future, with trust. |