Sun apologizes after automated feed grabs New York Times content prematurely

By Las Vegas Sun Staff (contact)

Monday, Dec. 9, 2013 | 7:15 a.m.

The Las Vegas Sun issued an apology late Sunday after inadvertently posting New York Times content prematurely at lasvegassun.com and also publishing Times story lists that were not meant to be released online.

The problem had to do with how the Sun receives and posts stories from various news agencies. A new automated wire feed was activated last week at lasvegassun.com that did not recognize that the Times story was embargoed for a later publication date. The wire feed also mistakenly posted the Times' story lists, which are intended to alert editors -- but not the public -- what will be appearing in the newspaper's print edition the next day.

The issue came to the Sun’s attention after reports began appearing in social media that a major New York Times piece about homelessness had appeared at lasvegassun.com before it became available on the Times’ site.

Once alerted to the situation, the Sun immediately shut down its wire feed and pulled the stories and lists from its site. Those actions made the content inaccessible to people visiting lasvegassun.com directly, and the Sun also made requests to Google to break any embedded links to the content. That move was designed to keep the stories from being shared through links.

Staff members have begun working to ensure similar errors do not occur in the future.