An important admonition applies equally to government offices and private sector organizations. It is this: At all costs, preserve credibility.

There have been two examples in Oregon lately of individuals or organizations that have sacrificed credibility – the Governor’s Office under the former executive, John Kitzhaber, who is alleged to have misused the power of his office, accusations that led to his resignation, and the Oregonian newspaper for its failure to correct obvious inaccuracies in its coverage of Kitzhaber’s fall from grace.

For Kitzhaber, he sacrificed credibility that, at least to a degree, he had earned over 35 years in public life. As is true with any political figure, not everyone liked him, of course, but he had held major elective positions in Oregon state government, first as Senate President and later as Governor.

He also had earned a national reputation for his interest in and commitment to health care reform. It is true that his last contributions didn’t fare too well as Oregon struggled to implement ObamaCare, as well as to engage in a failed attempt to create its own health insurance exchange. But there was no doubt that, as a former emergency room physician, Dr. Kitzhaber had focused on health care during his 35 years in public life.

Health care might have worked so well in Kitzhaber’s last year or so in office, but he lost his position and his reputation over allegedly giving too much influence and power to his live-in First Lady, Cylvia Hayes, not yet his wife. He also was alleged to have used a private e-mail system to skirt public transparency.

Credibility? Gone!

For its part, the Oregonian newspaper took on Kitzhaber and led public calls for his resignation, using its self-defined “Public Watchdog” role to keep up the anti-Kitzhaber drumbeat. It assigned a group of reporters to follow the Kizhaber trail, including looking into use of the private e-mail systems. (Hayes also used such systems.)

But the state’s largest newspaper failed when it made several important factual errors in its coverage, then failed to correct those errors, either quickly enough or prominently enough. The corrections ran on inside pages of the newspaper while the negative stories on Kitzhaber had mostly been displayed prominently on the front page.

The Salem Statesman-Journal joined the fray earlier this month when it ran front-page coverage that gave Kitzhaber a chance to explain his pique at the media. The coverage also enabled the Oregonian’s competitor from Salem to raise questions about the Oregonian’s ethics in avoiding immediate corrections.

The Oregonian’s credibility? The Oregonian is still here, so its credibility is not gone, but is at least damaged.

As a state government official for 15 years and a private sector lobbyist for 25 years, I know the value of credibility. Without it, you fail.

In the two cases above, credibility suffered. Kitzhaber is now awaiting the outcome of a criminal investigation into his conduct, which means he will never again ascend to an important position in public life. The Oregonian might recover a portion of its credibility, especially if it hews to a brighter line in correcting its own errors.

Making an error is one thing. Correcting it can restore credibility.