How to ask a publisher to unpublish an article
This is the hardest guide on the site and the one with the lowest success rate, and it is still worth doing yourself first. Editors receive these requests constantly; the ones that work look completely different from the ones that do not.
How do you get a news article taken down?
Contact the publication’s editor or corrections desk in writing, under their own published corrections or unpublishing policy, stating a specific factual error or a material change such as charges being dropped, with documentary evidence attached. Most outlets refuse outright removal but will append an update or correction, which is usually the realistic outcome and often achieves what you needed.
Before you write anything
- The outlet’s corrections or unpublishing policy — most serious publications have one
- The name of the right person: the editor, the corrections desk, or the standards editor
- Documentary evidence of whatever you are asserting
- An honest answer to: is this inaccurate, or is it accurate and unflattering?
- 1
Decide honestly what you are asking for
If the article is accurate and you are a public figure, you are asking a newsroom to suppress true reporting, and they will refuse. Knowing that before you write saves you from the version of this that generates a second article.
- 2
Find the right person
Not the reporter, in most cases. Corrections desks and standards editors exist for this and handle it procedurally; the reporter has a personal stake in the piece.
- Look for a corrections, standards or readers’ editor contact
- Failing that, the section editor rather than the writer
- For smaller outlets, the editor-in-chief is usually the only route
- 3
Lead with the specific error or change
First sentence: what is wrong, or what has changed. Not who you are, not how damaging it has been. Editors triage on whether there is a factual issue.
- Good: "The article states I was convicted. The charges were dismissed on 14 March; the court order is attached."
- Bad: "This article is destroying my business and my family and I need it taken down immediately."
- 4
Attach the evidence
A court order, a dismissal notice, a correction from another outlet, a regulator finding. Assertions get filed; documents get acted on.
- 5
Offer the middle ground yourself
This is the technique that works most often. Editors refuse removal far more readily than they refuse an update. Propose an appended note recording the outcome — many will accept that in the same reply where they decline removal.
- 6
Never threaten
A legal threat converts an editorial question into a press-freedom question, and newsrooms write about those. More than one person has turned a buried article into a front-page story this way.
- 7
Accept the answer, then look at other routes
If they say no twice, they have said no. The remaining options are de-indexing, a right to be forgotten request where you are eligible, or suppression — not a third email.
What guarantees failure
- Any mention of lawyers in a first approach.
- Emailing the reporter and the editor and the publisher simultaneously.
- Offering money. It is insulting to a newsroom and it has been published as a story in itself.
- Asking for removal of accurate reporting without offering an alternative.
- Sending the same email every week. It gets you filtered, permanently.
When this stops being a DIY job
Where this is worth paying for: a syndicated story that exists at a dozen URLs, an unresponsive or offshore publisher, a case where a right to be forgotten filing should run in parallel, or simply where you are too close to it to write a dispassionate letter. That last one is more common than people admit.
News article removalQuestions
Terms used here
Last reviewed . Platform processes change; we re-check every guide quarterly.