I’m not sure what you mean here? If LC had said “ok, we’ll consider all the evidence you provide by [datetime] and update our post as we see appropriate” what are you worried about?
threatening/pressuring witnesses into silence
This seems possible to address with precommitments? I think LC and the sources could have agreed on and included something like “to protect our sources from retaliation aimed at keeping the serious allegations in this post from becoming public, we have agreed with them that from the time we first share a draft with NL we will not honor any requests our sources make to withdraw claims.” And then made sure NL knows this and that LC is serious about it.
As far as I understand Ben seemed to have made a precommitment to Alice and Chloe to publish at a certain date. The idea of them not publishing at that point seems to already break a precommitment and make future precommitments weaker.
I find the idea of precommiting not to update on Alice saying “When it comes to event XY I forgot to mention facts Y and Q” not easy to uphold.
Ben seemed to have made a precommitment to Alice and Chloe to publish at a certain date
Sorry, I’m trying to talk about how to do this sort of thing in the future and what options were available to someone in Ben’s position. If Ben committed to Alice and Chloe that he’d publish on a certain date (and it’s not clear to me he did, or if so how far out he did) that was a mistake, and then one seriously compounded by not starting ‘adversarial’ draft review far enough in advance of that date.
What I’d like to see from future people in Ben’s position is something like:
A: I can’t publish this list of accusations without letting the other side raise potential counterevidence
B: I’m concerned about retaliation during the period when the accused knows this is coming but before it’s public, with the goal of getting me to retract
A: I’m willing to commit to not honoring any requests you make to withdraw claims between now and publication, and to make the accused aware of this, so they won’t benefit from retailiation
I think this handles the retaliation-against-sources-to-prevent-publication concern?
I find the idea of precommiting not to update on Alice saying “When it comes to event XY I forgot to mention facts Y and Q” not easy to uphold.
Maybe think of it like launching an ICBM you can’t remotely disable. The decision for the sources analogous to launching would be when they tell Ben that they’re ok with their claims in the draft as is, and they’re ready to send it to NL. After that point Ben can decide to drop claims or add things he learns from NL, but the sources do not get to provide additional input until after publication.
The decision of whether or not to launch a ICBM is a binary one.
Take the issue of the illegal drugs. Imagine that Alice first version of the story was as unspecific as it’s written. One day in Kate writes in and says “It’s ADHD medication + antibiotics and not really illegal material”. Then Alice sends an email saying “”It’s ADHD medication + antibiotics and not really illegal material”.
If Ben then publishes a story saying “It’s Alice position that it’s illegal drugs and Kat’s position that Alice wasn’t asked to bring over illegal drugs” Ben would likely get pushback for that. In an actual court case, it can be argued that Ben misrepresents the evidence available to him.
It sounds like you’re describing a situation like:
A: [to B, in advance] they asked me to bring drugs into the country illegally.
C: [to B, in fact checking] yes, but the drugs were over-the-counter medications and we thought it was legal.
A: [to B, after fact checking has begun] C told me about the drug thing and asked me to retract my claim. I didn’t lie to you, but I probably should have mentioned that they were OTC and C didn’t know they were legal.
With this strategy B would ignore that A agrees with C’s clarification. And would also ignore it if instead it had been:
A: [to B, after fact checking has begun] C told me about the drug thing and asked me to retract my claim, but is thinking of a different time; I was taking about the crack.
If it’s important to A that C cannot retaliate against them to shut them up and they’ve decided to use the precommittment process I’m proposing, this requires giving up some flexibility. In this case the time for B to get clarity from A on exactly what they’re claiming would have to be before starting the adversarial fact checking process. Once it has started, all B can do is consider what they heard from A before fact checking and what they’re hearing from C now and choose between keeping the claim, weakening it, clarifying it, or dropping it.
Note that weakening it is quite tricky: you can’t do it in a way that makes it sound like A is claiming something different than they already endorsed before fact checking, so if you do want to keep the claim I think clarifying it will often make more sense. In this scenario I think I’d go with something like “A told me C asked them to bring drugs into the country illegally. During fact checking C agreed that it wouldn’t have been legal, but also said they were over-the-counter medications and at the time they made the request they believed bringing them in was legal.” And then potentially adding “Due to the precommitments to our sources I described above, I have not asked A whether they agree with C’s description of the situation, but even if C is correct I think it demonstrates a reckless attitude toward the sensitive matter of bringing controlled substances between jurisdictions.”
I’m not sure what you mean here? If LC had said “ok, we’ll consider all the evidence you provide by [datetime] and update our post as we see appropriate” what are you worried about?
This seems possible to address with precommitments? I think LC and the sources could have agreed on and included something like “to protect our sources from retaliation aimed at keeping the serious allegations in this post from becoming public, we have agreed with them that from the time we first share a draft with NL we will not honor any requests our sources make to withdraw claims.” And then made sure NL knows this and that LC is serious about it.
As far as I understand Ben seemed to have made a precommitment to Alice and Chloe to publish at a certain date. The idea of them not publishing at that point seems to already break a precommitment and make future precommitments weaker.
I find the idea of precommiting not to update on Alice saying “When it comes to event XY I forgot to mention facts Y and Q” not easy to uphold.
Sorry, I’m trying to talk about how to do this sort of thing in the future and what options were available to someone in Ben’s position. If Ben committed to Alice and Chloe that he’d publish on a certain date (and it’s not clear to me he did, or if so how far out he did) that was a mistake, and then one seriously compounded by not starting ‘adversarial’ draft review far enough in advance of that date.
What I’d like to see from future people in Ben’s position is something like:
I think this handles the retaliation-against-sources-to-prevent-publication concern?
Maybe think of it like launching an ICBM you can’t remotely disable. The decision for the sources analogous to launching would be when they tell Ben that they’re ok with their claims in the draft as is, and they’re ready to send it to NL. After that point Ben can decide to drop claims or add things he learns from NL, but the sources do not get to provide additional input until after publication.
The decision of whether or not to launch a ICBM is a binary one.
Take the issue of the illegal drugs. Imagine that Alice first version of the story was as unspecific as it’s written. One day in Kate writes in and says “It’s ADHD medication + antibiotics and not really illegal material”. Then Alice sends an email saying “”It’s ADHD medication + antibiotics and not really illegal material”.
If Ben then publishes a story saying “It’s Alice position that it’s illegal drugs and Kat’s position that Alice wasn’t asked to bring over illegal drugs” Ben would likely get pushback for that. In an actual court case, it can be argued that Ben misrepresents the evidence available to him.
It sounds like you’re describing a situation like:
With this strategy B would ignore that A agrees with C’s clarification. And would also ignore it if instead it had been:
If it’s important to A that C cannot retaliate against them to shut them up and they’ve decided to use the precommittment process I’m proposing, this requires giving up some flexibility. In this case the time for B to get clarity from A on exactly what they’re claiming would have to be before starting the adversarial fact checking process. Once it has started, all B can do is consider what they heard from A before fact checking and what they’re hearing from C now and choose between keeping the claim, weakening it, clarifying it, or dropping it.
Note that weakening it is quite tricky: you can’t do it in a way that makes it sound like A is claiming something different than they already endorsed before fact checking, so if you do want to keep the claim I think clarifying it will often make more sense. In this scenario I think I’d go with something like “A told me C asked them to bring drugs into the country illegally. During fact checking C agreed that it wouldn’t have been legal, but also said they were over-the-counter medications and at the time they made the request they believed bringing them in was legal.” And then potentially adding “Due to the precommitments to our sources I described above, I have not asked A whether they agree with C’s description of the situation, but even if C is correct I think it demonstrates a reckless attitude toward the sensitive matter of bringing controlled substances between jurisdictions.”