Why you should never ask a journalist for a retraction
Seeking a correction about wrong or garbled information is perfectly fine. How you go about it, though, makes all the difference in the ongoing relationship with your media contact.
You do your best to pull all the important facts together. You lay them out neatly for the reporter. You make sure he has your contact information in case he has any more questions.
Yet, when you see the story—the story you worked so hard to facilitate for your client or company—you see a mistake. So, what do you do now?
It’s a problem explored recently by Shelley Pringle on her Polaris blog in a post titled, “When to ask for a media retraction.”
If you really want the answer, it’s quite simple: You never ask for a retraction.
However, you can ask for a correction.
What’s the difference? Isn’t it just semantics? Not to the journalist you’re going to be calling.
A common mistake that PR pros and many others make is not understanding that a retraction and a correction are different.
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