Well, by your standards, any journalist who makes an innocent mistake would be a liar. I think the truth is that the reporters honestly believed they had a solid story -- but their editors should have stepped in and killed it or postponed it until they had unearthed more evidence. Reporters can get carried away on a story and lose focus; this is why you have multiple layers of editors at most news organizations. I don't remember how the videotape was edited -- you may be right; I just don't remember the details. -Declan Disclaimer: I worked at Time Inc. at the time but was not involved with the story -- I didn't see it until it hit the airwaves/newsstands. At 09:09 AM 12/11/2001 -0800, jamesd@echeque.com wrote:
"No malice", not "no lies"
The reason he concludes "no malice" is that he concludes the reporters really believed the US had used nerve gas, not because he believes the reporters had truthfully reported the evidence. The edited Moorer seemingly admits to the use of nerve gas, and another witness seemingly admits to personally massacring civilians. In the unedited versions, they do not.
The reason it was "no malice" is that the reporters actually had some evidence -- but not evidence persuasive enough to report on television.