Margaret Sullivan, writing in the Public Editor’s Column (New York Times), clarifies that address they published:
Should The Times Have ‘Left It Out’ — and What, Exactly, Was ‘It’? by Margaret Sullivan, Dec. 1, 2014
The text of the article mentioned Wilson’s home street, but didn’t give the actual address, and noted that he hadn’t been there for some time.
The photo, published at first but then quickly taken down, showed his marriage license including a full address – but that wasn’t anybody’s home address. It was the address of some local law office.
Here’s what happened in the case of a brief blog post last week about the former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson’s marriage. The facts of the situation have been widely misreported and misunderstood, and my office has received hundreds of emails on the subject from angry readers who erroneously believe that The Times published Mr. Wilson’s address. (Some readers also wrongly believe that The Times published his phone number as well.)
Two Times reporters – Julie Bosman and Campbell Robertson – wrote a brief online post about Mr. Wilson’s recent marriage. They had a copy of the marriage license, and The Times published a photograph of it. That marriage license had an address on it, although it was that of a local law firm, not Mr. Wilson’s.
Separately, the blog post did give Mr. Wilson’s street name and the name of his town. It did not give the house number. The post also noted that he hadn’t been living there for some time.
After some concerns were raised about the address on the marriage license, The Times took the photo off the website and attached a somewhat misleading editor’s note. It read: “An earlier version of this post included a photograph that contained information that should not have been made public. The image has been removed.”
The wording of that editor’s note has changed, because it helped give credence to the false idea that the officer’s address was published on the marriage license. It was not. The new note reads: “An image of the marriage license originally published with this post was removed after concerns were raised over whether a home address was included on the license. In fact, the address was for a law firm’s office; the image did not show any home address.”