Behind the Scenes: Taking an L - A Real-World Guide to Writing a Retraction (2017)

Article Title: Taking an L – A Real-World Guide to Writing a Retraction

Author: Samantha Ferreira

Publication Date: 10/17/2017

Through my career, I've always made it a priority to be honest, upfront, and transparent to Anime Herald's readers. I've always been proud of the fact that I'm able to step up and explain exactly what's going on without hiding behind some squirrelly excuses or noncommittal comments.

That said, though, you have to take the good with the bad. It's easy to cherry pick the good points of a topic. You can always find a way to highlight the things you do well, and put your work in the best possible light.

On the flip side, it's super hard to admit when you've absolutely screwed up. I mean, let’s be honest. It’s human nature to not want to admit you’re wrong – it puts you into a position of weakness, and basically exposes your faults to whoever’s listening. 

That said, though, we’re journalists. In our trade, honesty isn’t just a virtue: it’s our mission. We punch the clock day in and day out, hoping to deliver the truth to our readers wherever we can.

When we’re right, it’s just another day at the office. When we’re wrong, though, we need to correct things. 

When we completely botch a story, we need to explain that to our readers immediately. If we become aware of our errors, it becomes irresponsible, nay, unethical to carry on as if nothing’s happened.

I've personally written two retractions in the history of Anime Herald:

1) Now-defunct dub studio M.B. Voiceworks opened its doors. We mistakenly reported this as Media Blasters opening a dub studio - at the time, M.B. Voiceworks was a coincidentally named entity.

2) Shortly after Grape-kun the penguin passed away, we received numerous reports of the popular otaku penguin receiving a standee with his beloved Hululu (a character from Kemono Friends). With numerous reports coming in, each with convincing photographic evidence, we deemed the story valid, and wrote our coverage. We were wrong.

And, really, these were both painful to write. In both, I had to point out exactly what went wrong, provide corrections, and update our coverage. 

But, well, that’s the cost of doing business in our trade. I’ve never begrudged the process, nor have I really fretted too much. You take an ego hit, and people look at you side-eyed for a week. Still, the news is funny. It’s constantly being made, so you can continue to rebuild your credibility… so long as these mistakes remain infrequent.

Unfortunately, the art of the retraction is a bit, well... underutilized in fan journalism circles. I couldn't help but notice that there are still numerous outlets who post major updates to articles without as much of a notice. 

With the Grape-kun story still fresh in my mind, I set out to use the event as a teachable moment. 😊 I wanted to inform people on how to really write a retraction, in hopes that we’d see more appearing in the wild.

With that in mind, I turned to my old textbooks and notes from journalism lectures, digging out the details and reworking them into something that’s a bit easier to read and digest. Using our recent retraction as the working example, I broke the core elements down, and really tried to explain what things were stated, and why they were presented in that specific format.

While this isn’t one of our most popular articles (let’s be honest: a wonkish journalism lesson never is!), it’s a piece that I’m still proud of. Deep down, though, I can’t help but hope that at least one person out there was able to learn from it.