In cases like this it's probably better to leave the article up but plaster a big red 'retracted' banner across it, with a link to a complete explanation as to why it was retracted.
As far as defamation, isn't the legal bar on that pretty high in the USA? Maybe there's a negligence issue, i.e. relying on a single source, not doing enough background, etc. that overrides the normal 'good faith' reporting norms?
As I said in another comment, I feel certain (based on my own direct experience working for a publication that faced numerous lawsuits over what in those cases were factual articles) that this was a condition of a legal settlement.
And the thing is, you settle in this case because even though the defamation bar is really high, if your sourcing was wrong (and you maybe didn't do the best job of vetting that sourcing) and the more complicated aspect is that your source was later indicted in relation to a crime directly connected to the information they shared as the basis of that article, this seems like a pretty straightforward "settle it and move on" scenario, rather than trying to fight it in the courts. Barring the largesse of a large news organization (who also might choose to settle, as the Washington Post did with that kid in DC, even though the New York Times and others were years later found to not have defamed him), this is probably not the sort of thing you want to spend the potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting. Because at the end of the day, the reporting was still flawed.
Date Filed: August 25th, 2022 "Defendants Brian Krebs and Krebs on Security, LLC respectfully request that the Court extend the deadline for Defendants to respond to the Complaint by an additional thirty days in light of extraordinary circumstances that have delayed the finalization of the parties’ settlement"
>In cases like this it's probably better to leave the article up but plaster a big red 'retracted' banner across it, with a link to a complete explanation as to why it was retracted.
Yes, that would have been IMHO much more appropriate, though there is the Wayback Machine (thanks for providing the link), allowing everyone to see with their own eyes what the matter was.
Initial report: https://web.archive.org/web/20211202143043/https://krebsonse...
Indictment of source: https://web.archive.org/web/20211202161703/https://krebsonse...
In cases like this it's probably better to leave the article up but plaster a big red 'retracted' banner across it, with a link to a complete explanation as to why it was retracted.
As far as defamation, isn't the legal bar on that pretty high in the USA? Maybe there's a negligence issue, i.e. relying on a single source, not doing enough background, etc. that overrides the normal 'good faith' reporting norms?