Word: caleb
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Shortly after the article was published, I told Caleb I was working on a short reflective follow-up—not a correction, but something of a personal apology. This wasn’t something Caleb or any of my other sources had requested; but I felt ambiguous enough about the reporting process that I thought a follow-up might be appropriate. I told my editors about it, but then I stalled. I tried to write, but couldn't get down anything that satisfied me. I wasn't sure what it was that I was trying to apologize...
What I had done to Caleb in being deceptive about the angle of my story certainly wasn't nice. It wasn't nice either to write a story about Caleb—or about any of the others—that I had good reason to think would make them upset. By the standards of personal ethics, it wasn’t particularly virtuous to publicize my classmates’ ambitions in order to further...
Finally, last April, Caleb approached The Crimson’s editors about the follow-up. He also raised concerns about what I had said to him during the reporting process. He suggested that by telling him, in that initial phone call, that he didn't have to talk about the future, I had straight-out lied to him. That would be a breach of journalistic ethics that could invalidate parts of my article...
...distinction I had made to Caleb in our second phone call had been a real one. I assumed he would be vague about his political future. I wanted him to talk about what his ambition—real or perceived—meant at Harvard...
...talked them through what I had done, telling them, in rough form, what I’ve written here. They agreed with me that what I had done did not merit a retraction or an apology. But they decided to add a clarification to the online photograph of Caleb to emphasize that the campaign button on his chest had been added with Photoshop. The whole situation, they said, was a little dubious. I said I was still willing to write a personal reflection on reporting the article, and they agreed that readers would benefit from the added context...