A report in the normally reliable Wall Street Journal Monday, which was used as the basis for an article yesterday in WinInfo, was quietly pulled from the WSJ Interactive Web site only hours after it was posted. Representatives for the Wall Street Journal refused to comment, beyond stating that the story should never have been published. The report concerned a possible remedy for the Microsoft antitrust trial that's being floated around the computer industry by the government, where the company would be forced to share the source code of Internet Explorer with competitors and partners.
"The story was not ready for publication and should not have been published," said a WSJ spokesperson.
The New York Times almost gleefully seized upon the gaffe as an example of the lowered journalistic standards in the Internet age, where accuracy is compromised for speed of publication, but the article in question was posted only to the Web version of the paper and never made it into print. And if this type of thing is really a concern, there are far more questionable Web-based news organizations on the Web that one could target. While I rarely base an article on a single public source, the Wall Street Journal is typically a safe bet. That continues to be true today
