To the Editor:
I am writing in response to a letter from Alexis Jetter, who, it would seem, would like to assign a role for herself and Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz in our decision to print a front page retraction regarding a story about the Zantop murder. Ms. Jetter's case is that (1.) she called Kurtz; (2.) Kurtz called me (3.) I decided we should print the retraction because I was afraid of what Kurtz would write. I guess Ms. Jetter fancies herself as quite a mind reader.
The fact is that I was prepared to print a retraction at any point from Saturday (day after publication) on. If we had printed it on the day of the arrests, it perhaps would have attracted less attention. As it happened, I was pushing the issue but the editor handling the story and the reporters who wrote the story were unable to get their sources to back down until Tuesday afternoon. We immediately began preparing our editor's note at that time. I owed Kurtz a call back as a courtesy to update him on what was happening.
A front page statement, such as we published, is extremely rare in journalism. Far rarer than front page errors. We would not make such a decision just because someone was writing a story. We knew there would be plenty of criticism to follow. Kurtz's piece would be just one.
By Ms. Jetter's account, there would have been no retraction if it weren't for her. Sorry, Ms. Jetter, it just didn't happen that way.
