Our Apologies on the E-cigarette Headline

One of the news stories we covered yesterday, on FDA’s take on e-cigarettes, contains a series of errors. Miss James, the reporter, may have overlooked certain facts and distorted others. In the headline itself, which was not written by the reporter herself by the way, it was made out that, in terms of damage to health, FDA equated e-cigarettes with tobacco cigarettes. This is far from what the agency actually said.

No one will gain anything if we try to explain how this came to be, but here's our explanation for what it's worth. Our reporters and writers work under pressing deadlines. Also, the reporters’ stories are sometimes heavily edited by the sub-editing desk. In this case, a sub-editor changed the story while doing her ‘editing’ and distorted the headline as well.

That said, I’m not suggesting that we’re not responsible. To write – and that too in a headline – that FDA said that E-cigarettes are as dangerous as tobacco cigarettes, when the agency didn’t outright say so, is a howler that cannot be overlooked.

Of course, there’s no way FDA can say that. One of the readers (Sam Layne) put it squarely when he wrote in his comment: “Even the FDA will NOT come out and say that e-cigarettes are as dangerous as actual cigarettes. The FDA is being very careful as to what they DO in fact say, likely because (in my opinion), they will have to defend their position when their own tests and further independant lab tests come back."

We do apologize for the error. The incorrect parts from within the news have been taken off and we've changed the headline as well.

I do understand that most of the readers who posted vehement replies to the news are deeply affected. It could be that they are associated with the e-cigarettes industry or are the end-users strongly against a possible ban on e-cigarettes.

And misleading headlines like ours will only help precipitate that ban. I’m pretty sure majority of Americans, including most of us at themoneytimes too, don’t want this ban that FDA keeps trying to suggest.

Though the reporter and the sub-editor need a ‘talk’, I cannot really say I’ll be taking it up with them. Miss James’s been mortified much already; if you read through all the comments, which we rightly chose not to moderate, you’ll see what I mean.

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