Precious little explanation

Why news organisations have to explain their mistakes if they want people to trust them.

On Tuesday evening I got a call from Precious Williams. Following my blog on Monday – when I appealed for more information about the Mail on Sunday's paltry two paragraph retraction – she called me from Berlin. She wanted people to hear her side of the story.

Rewind a second. On two consecutive Sundays, 20th and 27th May, the Mail on Sunday printed full page articles alleging that Jon Snow – the Channel 4 news presenter – had been involved in a 6 year affair with Precious Williams. Amongst many details, quotes and 'facts' it also alleged that the two of them regularly got stoned together. Then last Sunday, the 3 rd June, the newspaper retracted all claims in a 79 word statement, saying "There is no truth in these allegations… We accept that in fact Mr Snow never had any relationship with Miss Williams, and that the allegation of drug-taking was unfounded". No explanation as to why it had printed the articles in the first place.

Now if you're a regular reader what are you supposed to think? Perhaps Williams invented the whole thing and the newspaper was fooled. Perhaps the paper has something against Jon Snow? Perhaps it was a series of unfortunate journalistic errors?

Whatever you think the lack of explanation leaves you hanging. You are left with the feeling that someone is not being honest with you. It makes you wonder how many other stories are untrue and will get retracted next week. Without an explanation you have no idea if this was bad journalism or an honest mistake.

So what is Williams' story? Williams vehemently denies that she approached the paper. Neither, she says, did she accept any money from them. Her first inkling that they were pursuing the story came when she received a phone call from the Mail's Home Affairs editor in Berlin, where she now lives. He told her he had good information that she had been seeing Jon Snow and wanted to speak to her about it. She refused.

Eight hours later a Mail journalist appeared on her doorstep in Germany. As a freelance writer who has done work for the Mail, Williams did not want to make enemies and so agreed to have a conversation with the journalist (and only agreed to an interview after 7 days harassment and after signing a confidentiality agreement - which was later broken, Williams says). She did not, she claims, say most of the things which then appeared in quote marks in the newspaper article. Snow, meanwhile, claims he has never met Precious Williams.

It's impossible to say what the real story is. Only two people know. But we can say that it isn't tenable for a news organisation to admit it got something so completely wrong but not explain how or why. If the Mail had a readers' editor he/she could describe what had gone wrong and what was being done to prevent it happening in the future. But it doesn't. Alternatively, the Mail could give both people the space in the paper to respond to the stories. But it hasn't.

In an age where there is so much media space, where you can give people chapter and verse on how you found a story and why people should trust it, such a lack of explanation is no longer acceptable and can only undermine readers' trust.