Maybe I came off as more definitive than I intended. I agree with the retraction. It was required, but it's really more of a follow-on than a retraction. An apology to Canadian police is more necessary, probably. That's a no-fault too though, in my estimation. They had to keep quiet while investigating, and temporarily absorb criticism. That's a hazard of the job though.

I see nothing wrong with this tweet, never mind "career-ending."

"1. Big news out of Canada: Abu Huzayfah has been arrested on a terrorist “hoax” charge. The narrative tension of our podcast “Caliphate” is the question of whether his account is true. In Chapter 6 we explain the conflicting strands of his story, and what we can and can’t confirm"

Shades of uncertainty. This is honest journalism. Whether or not she felt overconfident in any given detail or narrative, the we got to hear the account, suspicions, reasons to dismiss or believe the source (chaudhry). I don't think anyone reasonably concludes that his account is mostly honest or accurate, just that it may contain truth. He literally gets outed and confronted about being a liar.

I am not a journalist. I can tell from that podcast that there are reasons for the strong reaction that look different from a journalistic perspective and a layman's one. I think the difference (to me) is frame.

If in episode 3, she totally believes his account and by episode 6 she's dubious... that's the nature of doing investigative journalism as a temporal series.

> he we got to hear the account, suspicions, reasons to dismiss or believe the source (chaudhry). I don't think anyone reasonably concludes that his account is mostly honest or accurate, just that it may contain truth. He literally gets outed and confronted about being a liar.

They might "complicate the narrative" but they're putting it out there as being at least partially true when it was actually entirely false. It isn't "honest" journalism to keep putting out your sensationalized stories with just a little added "narrative tension."

> I see nothing wrong with this tweet

Read the entire thread - she is basically suggesting that the reason they didn't charge him is because they are incompetent.

Both of my parents are former editors at major national publications. My mom has had to fire people for stuff like this. They think that this was a breach of journalistic integrity and pretty much career-ending.

>>they're putting it out there as being at least partially true when it was actually entirely false.

We know now that it was entirely false. She didn't at the time. The flak at Canadian police had to take is regrettable. They were investigating, had to keep quiet, and couldn't "clear their name" for several months. She owes an apology, but that's somewhat outside of "The Caliphate" itself.

Look... I realize that my take on this is contradictory to journalistic norms. Maybe there is actual tension between practicable "journalistic integrity" and my layman's definition of "honest" journalism.

Frame matters a lot. If you are printing a single column article summarizing the Chaudery saga, standard "journalist integrity" makes a lot of sense. Not verified enough. The primary source is lying about some stuff at least. Don't print.

If you are making an audio series that follows a journalist on investigation... This allows for shades of uncertainty. Callimachi is very confident in the source at first. Later, she catches him on some lies. By the end, he's clearly a dubious source at best. I don't think you can summarize this as "putting it out there." This isn't a Reuters wire. You can have ambiguity.

She should not have jumped to the conclusion that Canadian police were inept. That was bad instincts, and an investigative failure resulted.

In any case, I'm not saying it's journalistically perfect. I'm just shocked that it is being treated as a low watermark. I feel like a lot of reporting can and does clear a "journalistic integrity" hurdle, but scores much lower than Callimachi in my estimation of "honest journalism." I guess we value different things.

Tangent: something about this thread is making me think of "The Wire," All the lines about "good police work."

As other people have said, she'll probably fail upwards. Others in the past have tried to stop her from, well, lying, and have failed, even more so, those people have seen their career negatively affected by that. Via /r/syriancivilwar/ I've come across this article from 2018 [1] which detailed how the former NYTimes Baghdad correspondent Margaret Coker lost her job because she had tried to stop Callimachi.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/10/...

Ah yes, my parents (who are former national editors) had told me about this sort of discontent among bureau chiefs around her, although they didn't name the particular names.

Just by it happening, it's already career-limiting. I'm not sure every even serious screw up needs to result in a firing squad. That said, this is certainly in the category of things that can certainly end up that way at a major news org. See also Rathergate.

> Just by it happening, it's already career-limiting

Oh absolutely - and I don't think she shouldn't necessarily be a journalist/storyteller anymore (clearly has somewhat of a knack for it) but not at a NYT/Wapo/WSJ.

For all the heat those pubs get, my personal experience with them is that they're pretty meticulous with their reporting. (Which of course doesn't mean they don't sometimes miss the bigger picture even if their facts as reported are correct.)

I had a total nothingburger quote in the WSJ a bit back and the whole process took 2 phone discussions, some back and forth messaging, and a fact check on email (presumably to put on record). For something that was completely banal.

> The fact that they kept going after this (and didn't investigate further) is when you start having serious issues

Honestly, the biggest error they mentioned in the correction in my opinion was with the photos. Turns out they ended up reverse image searching some of the photos he had posted, and many of them were stolen from other sources. That right there would've been another huge red flag.