Thread by @RachelKleinfeld

I was misquoted by a reporter, and now am in the midst of a media storm – people who care about the REAL story should read here:

A Reuters reporter misquoted me in a story about Charlie Kirk’s murder, putting words in my mouth that pointed a finger at a particular group as responsible. The reporters had mixed up their own notes with my quote and reported what they had found elsewhere as words I had said.

I never mentioned a specific group or movement to Reuters or any reporter – I do not study specific groups and so don’t comment on them. I would also not speculate about something as serious as who committed a murder.

Reuters realized what had happened and tried to simply change the quote without admitting reporter error, like a five-year-old who broke mom’s vase and tries to hide the damage.

When I learned what had happened, I & the Carnegie Endowment where I work attempted to get Reuters – and other outlets that had by then quoted the original misquote - to print a formal retraction admitting that they had misquoted me. They eventually did, but far, far too slowly.

Meanwhile, I was getting hateful messages from people who read the misquote and others who thought there was a cover up. And then the Foundation for Freedom Online made allegations that my institution, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as supporting censorship.

They noted that “It is considered good journalistic practice, when a news website makes a clarification, correction, or any other substantial change to its initial report, for the authors to include a note informing readers that a change has been made.” I very much agree.

Then they wrote, correctly at the time but not now, that: “No such note can be found in Reuters’ report, making the edit look more like an attempt to cover up misinformation than an honest correction” and inferred the rest of their story.

I am FURIOUS at that reporter in Reuters and their editorial slowness in printing a retraction, which they should have done immediately. I also know that Reuters has excellent reporters who do thoughtful, careful work on political violence and other topics.

Carnegie also has thoughtful, careful scholars. Reporters and scholars sometimes make mistakes. The way to correct them is to publicly admit mistake. Society needs to make room for honest mistakes from those trying their best, whether by a scholar, or in this case, by a reporter.

Instead, America is letting far-left & far-right cancel culture win. Call outs in public before a story is known. Online mobs & sometimes offline violence, emails of unspeakable language, reputation destruction, job loss, & harm to valuable institutions is no way to run a society

My mother was irreparably harmed by a far-left cancel culture 30 years ago. Her father, my grandfather, lost his job from the McCarthyism witch hunt. Now I may be facing something similar from the far-right.

It’s no surprise that cancellation ping-pongs back and forth – one side’s radicalization radicalizes the other. We all lose. We gain when we talk to one another openly. America is weakened when we attack people and organizations for the peaceful expression of beliefs and ideas.

Charlie Kirk paid the ultimate price for our society's pathologies. I disagree fundamentally with his beliefs while respecting greatly his right to speak & organize for them. As someone who once started a young person’s advocacy organization, I saw what a singular talent he had.

I wonder what would have happened if he had been allowed to live beyond the stridency that characterizes so many people in their twenties, into his full mature self. He should have had that opportunity.

I do not have to agree with someone’s beliefs to wish that we lived in a society where no life would be ended prematurely through violence. We are a society of over 300 million. We won't all agree.