UPI editor: dissent is like soviet propoganda

[Declan McCullagh]

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 at 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.