The NYT public editor takes back her criticism of the NYT in the reporting of the Ferguson shooting.

Margaret Sullivan regrets her accusation that the Times reporters enaged in "false balance" and gave "dubious equivalency" to anonymous sources:

Giving implicit credence to the named sources who described Michael Brown as having his hands up as he was fired on by Officer Darren Wilson, I criticized the use of unnamed sources who offered opposing information: They said that the officer had reason to fear Mr. Brown. I even went so far as to call those unnamed sources �ghosts� because readers had so little ability to evaluate their identity and credibility.

Now that the Justice Department has cleared Mr. Wilson in an 86-page report that included the testimony of more than 40 witnesses, it�s obvious to me that it was important to get that side of the story into the paper.