• Poynter, Tuesday, July 5, 2011 2 PM

Should news sites show readers every time they update a story? Poynter's Steve Myers examines the question in detail. For example, readers can lose out when "a witness' account in a developing news story disappears when it's replaced by the version that appears in the next day's paper."

One suggestion: show -- or provide links to -- alternate versions of a story. However, while "this transparency [could] bolster media credibility... it could also strengthen arguments that the media can't keep its stories straight," writes Myers.

Also, a "simple comparison between two versions of a news story will show what was changed, but it won't tell people why. Explaining these revisions, some of which editors would consider trivial, would create more work; ignoring readers' questions would alienate them and raise more suspicions."

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