Is there any evidence that this change was the result of external pressure from Facebook, rather than as the result of internal NYT editing?
Articles frequently change in content, titles, and so on after publication, after all - that's why HN has to update titles so frequently.
Edit: Whoops, missed it the first read-through. Looks like the change was confirmed by the original reporter to be as the result of a request from the Facebook PR team.
Your edit is wrong; the NY Times reporter only confirmed the chronology, i.e. that the change happened at a later time than the contact from Facebook PR. She did not confirm that the change was a "result of a request from the Facebook PR team"; in fact she vehemently denied it on Twitter.
The story in this blog post is bullshit; it's made up.
> I was the NYT reporter who was in contact w/Facebook over our Stamos story yesterday. We didn't remove any references to Sandberg at Facebook's request. (For the record, Facebook made no such request). If anything we added MORE detail to the story between the 1st and 2nd versions
EDIT to clarify: Nicole Perlroth is the reporter mentioned by name in the blog post who confirmed the chronology. Sheera Frenkel was another reporter on the same NYT byline who tweeted the above. Here's a tweet from Perlroth too:
> Echoing Sheera here. @colinkalmbacher needs to correct his blog post to reflect that it is inaccurate, even his attempt at our name spellings. He should also address why he chose to ignore our responses, which contradicted everything he wrote.
> Looks like the change was confirmed by the original reporter to be as the result of a request from the Facebook PR team.
As snowwrestler pointed out, you are wrong in the most exact way. The OP article did not provide evidence or confirmation that Facebook PR team made this request, or that NYT made an editorial change because of FBPR. The OP says that it never got comment from Facebook PR. Meanwhile, the NYT reporters have outright denied that FBPR had any influence:
The second tweet is probably more interesting. The reporter says that she talked to FB PR, because it was how FBPR wanted to deliver a formal statement re: Stamos. This is common practice, because of how anal/tightly wound companies are in wanting to control the official message is. And reporters have discretion of how to interpret or what to include from the PR message (the NYT apparently excerpted just, "as productive").
There is literally no evidence offered to support collusion between FB and NYT. There are no witnesses or whistleblowers, not even anonymous ones, with any claims. And everyone obviously involved (NYT and FB) has outright denied it.
The headline for this story is absolute trash -- because the story doesn't even establish that Facebook even talked to NYT about changing its story, nevermind forcing the New York Times to censor itself. Under HN guidelines it should be changed to a much weaker assertion but I can't imagine how to water it down without rendering it pointless.
Articles frequently change in content, titles, and so on after publication, after all - that's why HN has to update titles so frequently.
Edit: Whoops, missed it the first read-through. Looks like the change was confirmed by the original reporter to be as the result of a request from the Facebook PR team.