[jrmg]

Is it normal/expected for a news organization to publish that they fired someone? I’m inclined to take the ‘don’t comment on personnel matters’ at face value.

They did report on the article quote sourcing debacle at the time - perhaps not as quickly as some would’ve liked, but within a couple of days.

[bayindirh]

Yes. Normally, and Ars is generally up to that standard, the editorial staff (or Editor in Chief) updates the article, adds a note about the correction, and further adds that the original author of the article is not working with Ars anymore.

It stays as a mark, immortalizing the error, but it's a better scar than deleting and acting like it never happened.

I also want to note that, this last incident response is not typical of the Ars I'm used to.

[nerdsniper]

> this last incident response is not typical of the Ars I'm used to.

They never really announced Peter Bright leaving ArsTechnica either though. At least not until much much later.

[bayindirh]

That was a criminal case, though. The court process may have prevented them from talking about it to keep things fair.

I'm not a US citizen and IANAL, so YMMV.

[pavon]

It isn't just Dr Pizza. In recent history (perhaps since being bought by Conde Nast?), when staff left, stories from them simply stopped appearing, and questions about whether they had left or were on a break were met with crickets. The only conformation came when the bio was changed and/or they announced they were hiring or had hired the person replacing them.

At least that is what I remember with Sam Machkovech, Ron Amadeo, Cyrus Farivar, Joe Mullin, Andrew Cunningham, Casey Johnston, Jaqui Cheng. And the policy doesn't appear to be limited to people leaving on bad terms since Andrew has since returned, and Cyrus occasionally contributes freelance articles. The last time I remember them announcing a departing staff member is when Ben Kuchera left.

[crazygringo]

I don't know what you're basing that on.

It seems entirely normal and standard to retract articles and publish a note elsewhere that it was retracted. In fact, it's common because if an article had one fabrication it might have others which you haven't discovered yet, so you don't want to keep it up.

Whether they want to announce that the journalist was fired is up to their discretion. But it's not necessary or even normal.

I don't know why you're talking about a "mark", a "scar", that "immortalizes". That's weird and frankly a little disturbing. The journalist got fired and the article got taken down and a note was made by the editor. That's accountability working as intended. I don't know why you want more than that.

[bayindirh]

First, I didn't want him to be fired, frankly. I have a comment telling exactly that when this thing happened.

Second, as a reader following Ars for more than 10 (15?, IDK) years, I never seen them abruptly retract an article like this. Their modus operandi is correct and own the corrections. This is what I always said (this is the third time in a comment train).

We all have scars. From a fall, from a cut, physical, emotional, whatnot. You don't need to feel sad, or get disturbed about it. A scar is a life's way of making you remember something. If it's your own making, it makes you remember what not to do. If it's someone else's making, it's makes you remember an unfortunate event you made out alive.

Owning your mistakes by correcting an article and marking it is greater accountability than saying "this has never happened, nothing to see here, move along". I'll not comment further on firing of the author. I don't have enough information on any side, or I don't know them close enough to say anything further than I wish he didn't get fired.

[crazygringo]

But retracting an article is more serious than making a correction.

The accountability comes from the editor's note. It's there already. It's owned.

You're acting like this is some attempt to bury a mistake. It doesn't appear to be. It's what happens when you don't even have faith that the rest of the article is correct.

[jrmg]

There was nothing at the article’s URL for a day or so after it was pulled (on a holiday weekend, FWIW), which I agree isn’t great. But there is, now, a page up at the article’s original URL:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/after-a-routine-code-reje...

with a locked comment leading to the Editor’s statement:

https://arstechnica.com/staff/2026/02/editors-note-retractio...

I disagree with the idea that the misleading article text should remain up after a retraction.

[donohoe]

No. That can happen but it’s not the only path. An article can be retracted. That said, it’s usually noted somewhere else.

[bayindirh]

You're right, but I told about what Ars does 99.999% of the time. This is the only exception I see Ars retracts an article and buries it deep like this.

[IshKebab]

The BBC reports on itself quite well (maybe too much even). Here's an example:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly51dzw86wo

I think they're an outlier, but still I was disappointed by Ars's response. They deleted the article and didn't detail what was wrong with it at all. Felt like a cover-up.

[d1sxeyes]

To be completely fair, BBC news is effectively a different organisation which has the BBC name. There's a fairly good overview of it here: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c80l3074mgko

[kitd]

BBC News does have to report on itself from time to time. Here's it's "live" feed from November on the Parliamentary Committee investigation into the Trump speech edit incident:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cp34d5ly76lt

(edit: technically, it was Panorama. I'm not sure if that is part of the News remit or separate from it).

[rgblambda]

Panorama is technically part of News. The CEO of News resigned over the trump edit as well as the Director General. Though an independent production company (October Films) produced the documentary, they claim BBC News Panorama team had final say over the editing. The BBC doesn't seem to have ever disputed this.

[buran77]

> They deleted the article

This was a big disappointment. I read the original article and the comment from the source highlighting the error, knew what was wrong with it, and still think it was the wrong move to just delete the article and all the original comments, and replace it with an editorial note.

This is a kind of cover-up. It's impossible to hide the issue but they went to great lengths to soften the optics and remove the damning content from the public record. They obscured the magnitude of the error. It looks like another "person uses AI and gets some details wrong".

What they did so far, the decisions that allowed the issue to occur in the first place (e.g. no editorial review before publishing) and the first reaction to deal with the incident (just destroy the content, article and comments) is everything I need to know about the journalistic principles at ArsTechnica. it's a major loss of trust for me.

[g947o]

If a news organization publishes an article welcoming someone onboard, they should also do that when someone is fired because of a scandal.

Of course, if someone leaves because of personal reasons or jumping ship, there is no reason to do that. But this is different.

[donohoe]

Sorta. Usually they would do a press release or a post on their company blog - not an article.

Aside, posting about a new hire is easy and has no legal livability. Posting on a departure can be a tangled web.

I do agree that some note by Ars would be good here.

[Hnrobert42]

The complications of HR policy and law do not allow for your proposed solution.

[g947o]

I have no experience in that area, but it's hard to see how a plain, factual statement "This person is no longer with the company." can be problematic.

[pavon]

That statement by itself wouldn't warrant an article, and it would be difficult to include a statement like that in a larger article about the event, without implying more than that.