lance writer ruth barrett atlantic defamation

LANCE WRITER RUTH BARRETT ATLANTIC DEFAMATION PDF

But the checking of some details of Sloane's story relied solely on interviews and other communications with Sloane or her husband or both of them.

Barrett says that the fabricated son is the only detail about which she deceived our fact-checkers and editors.ĭuring the initial fact-checking process, we corroborated many details of Sloane's story with sources other than Sloane. Sloane's attorney claimed that there are several other errors about Sloane in the article but declined to provide The Atlantic with examples. Barrett denies that the invention of a son was her idea, and denies advising Sloane to mislead The Atlantic's fact-checkers, but told us that 'on some level I did know that it was BS' and 'I do take responsibility.' The next day, when we questioned her again, she admitted that she was 'complicit' in 'compounding the deception' and that 'it would not be fair to Sloane' to blame her alone for deceiving The Atlantic. When we asked Barrett about these allegations, she initially denied them, saying that Sloane had told her she had a son, and that she had believed Sloane. Her attorney also said that according to Sloane, Barrett had first proposed the invention of a son, and encouraged Sloane to deceive The Atlantic as a way to protect her anonymity. In explaining Sloane's reasoning for telling our fact-checker she had a son, Sloane's attorney told The Atlantic that she wanted to make herself less readily identifiable. We independently corroborated that Sloane does not have a son. Through her attorney, Sloane informed us that she does not, in fact, have a son. After publication, when a Washington Post media critic asked us about the accuracy of portions of the article, our fact-checking department reached out to Sloane to recheck certain details. Before publication, Sloane confirmed this detail to be true to The Atlantic's fact-checking department. The original version of this article stated that Sloane has a son. We have established that Barrett deceived The Atlantic and its readers about a section of the story that concerns a person referred to as 'Sloane.' We are sharing with our readers what we have learned so you may understand how we came to this decision.

LANCE WRITER RUTH BARRETT ATLANTIC DEFAMATION PDF

We have decided to take down the online version but to make available a PDF of the article as it appears in our November 2020 issue. We believe that scrubbing the article from the internet would not meet our standards for transparency, and we believe it is important to preserve access to the article for the historical record.

We draw a distinction between retraction and removal. We cannot attest to the trustworthiness and credibility of the author, and therefore we cannot attest to the veracity of the article. 2020 retraction of the article:Įditor's Note: After The Atlantic published this article, new information emerged that raised serious concerns about its accuracy, and about the credibility of the author, Ruth Shalit Barrett.

Lance writer ruth barrett atlantic defamation