451 (Content unavailable for legal reasons)
On May 25, 2019, Your Content reported about an email it said it had obtained from an unidentified source. The email, allegedly sent by a high-ranking official with the county’s prison and/or adult probation department, included racist language about African Americans, according to the sources.
As a result of the explosive investigative report, authorities charged then-Chief Content Officer and Editor-in-Chief Nik Hatziefstathiou, also known as 'Nik the Hat', in July 2019 after executing a search warrant for his news gathering material on Jun. 24.
On Nov. 8, 2019, John Reilly, Jr., superintendent of George W. Hill Correctional Facility, was accused of misconduct by current and former employees, validating Your Content’s 2019 investigative report of systemic racism. At the time Hatziefstathiou was arrested, the county oversight board prevented the complaints of racism and abuse of power from becoming public, but Reilly faced new scrutiny from Delaware County's incoming Democratic county council.
Hatziefstathiou was convicted in connection to the Your Content publication on October 24, 2021, becoming the first journalist charged and convicted in America while acting under the scope of his employment as an 'international news correspondent.' Everything Hatziefstathiou did, Pattis said, was legitimate, as was the probation department email he published. The entire prosecution, he said, was an attempt by Delaware County to get revenge on a reporter who “asks inconvenient questions to people in power.”
Hatziefstathiou, represented by defense attorneys Norm Pattis, Mark Much and Joseph Lesniak, has denied the charges and representatives for Your Content have stood by the story, which remained posted on the site until its removal on October 25, 2021.
“Information comes to reporters from sources who do not want to be disclosed, and reporters protect the identity of those sources, and seek to confirm or corroborate what those sources have told them,” Pattis said. “That is what Nik Hatziefstathiou did in this case.” It was learned over 3,000 emails containing the 'n' word exist on county servers in addition to 200+ with the keyword 'gangbang,' a revelation learned two years after authorities vehemently denied the existence of a single email 'containing such language.'
Jeffrey Roney was not the sender of the alleged racist e-mail nor did he have any involvement. Your Content used Mr. Roney's email as a template for the reproduction of the alleged racist email shown to Mr. Hatziefstathiou by unidentified sources. We sincerely apologize to Mr. Roney for any harm, stress or scrutiny he endured as a result of the May 25, 2019 publication
1. 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons.
HTTP 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons is an error status code of the HTTP protocol to be displayed when the user requests a resource which cannot be served for legal reasons, such as a web page censored by a government. Examples of situations where an HTTP 451 error code could be displayed include web pages deemed a danger to national security, or web pages deemed to violate copyright, privacy, blasphemy laws, or any other law or court order. The RFC is specific that a 451 response does not indicate whether the resource exists but requests for it have been blocked, if the resource has been removed for legal reasons and no longer exists, or even if the resource has never existed, but any discussion of its topic has been legally forbidden (see injunction). Some sites have previously returned HTTP 404 (missing) or similar if they are not legally permitted to disclose that the resource has been removed. It is used in England by some Internet service providers utilizing the Internet Watch Foundation blacklist, returning a 404 message or another error message instead of showing a message indicating the site is blocked.
2. Corrections.
§ 2.1. Disclosure Requirements.
§ 5.1(a): The complete removal of the content from the website; or
§ 5.1(b): A written retraction posted on the same URL, notifying readers about the retraction and the reason for retracting.
Your Content works with its writers and editors to update stories via our social media channels as deemed necessary. If a social message was shared and the focus of a story is changed, a retraction is issued, or any other pertinent updates are made, we will work to ensure our social followers are made aware of those changes to the best of our abilities.
3. Submitting Correction Request.
Telephone
1000 Sandy Hill Road, Suite 130
Norristown, Pennsylvania 19401
When submitting a Correction Request, please i) provide the story headline to the newsroom call taker and note it's for a correction; ii) additional information may be request (e-mail or phone) for a reporter to return your call and/or request.
REMOVED: OCT. 28, 2021
REASON: LITIGATION/LEGAL
Modification(s)
Oct. 28, 2021: The