In Response to "Through the Looking Glass" Hello, I'm the editor of The New Republic Online. You can probably guess why I'm writing to you. You mention in your Stephen Glass article that it's still possible to find Glass's articles on the Web, and then you demonstrate it. To be honest, that took us by surprise, since it is not our intent to make them available."When we post something to our archive, it is being continuously published,and that implies ongoing endorsement of its honesty and truthfulness," the site's managers wrote when Glass's fabrications were discovered. "Since we now know that many of Mr. Glass's articles contained fictionalized information, we believe it would be wrong to continue to publish his stories in our archive." That was our policy in July 1998, and it is our policy today. The fact that you could find the articles on our site doesn't mean that we've changed our view, it means that articles that we thought to be inaccessible aren't. As of today that problem is solved. None of Stephen Glass's fabricated stories are available from TNR Online any longer. The four that you linked to have been replaced with the full text of the 1998 policy statement. I realize this is an inconvenience for you. But if we let articles we know to be false remain on our site, we are doing a disservice to the magazine and to its readers. Yours, Jeremy McCarter Editor, The New Republic Online Read a response to McCarter's letter. |