Thursday, July 26

Send a draft of your story to a source? Some journalists do it — but be mindful of the risks

A Washington Post reporter’s decision to share a draft of a story with his sources is provoking a healthy discussion in newsrooms about when, if ever, it’s wise to circulate unpublished material for comments.While it’s difficult to say “never, ever,” a story should never — ever — be sent to anyone outside the newsroom without careful consideration of the legal and ethical perils.

The main one is this: Once a reporter establishes a certain fact-checking protocol, then any deviation from that fact-checking protocol risks appearing, to a judge and jury, like a lapse in diligence. Lapses in diligence are, under the law of defamation, a bad thing.

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