Journalistic Malpractice at the NYT and CNN

Their fatal omissions on the U.S. military strike

It was pure embarrassment.

Journalistic malpractice.

Just in terms of the principles of investigative reporting, both the New York Times and CNN violated basic journalistic codes with their sensational claim that U.S. military strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program “by only a few months.”

Both legacy media stories were thinly sourced and omitted key facts. Their “gotcha” antics continue to blemish the integrity and reliability of their profession.

Clearly, both the Times and CNN eagerly sought to discredit President Trump’s claim that the American B-2 bomber fleet and cruise missiles “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear production capabilities.

As a former investigative reporter who cut his teeth with Ralph Nader, the nation’s top investigator, this is a deliberate hit job that fails many basic tenets of journalism.

Perhaps one day this case will be dissected in journalism schools as a prime example of how to use misinformation and to try to sell it as “fact.”

Also problematic is that two of the prominent bylined reporters for the Times and CNN articles have previously published sensational charges that were later disproven to be fabrications.

So, let’s get into their reporting.

The most important blemish on both articles is their omission of a key fact. Omissions are one of the legacy media’s prime techniques of tilting stories. Half of the story is correct. But other inconvenient truths are omitted.

What was missing in both articles is that the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which produced the very brief five-page initial report, had “low confidence” about its own conclusion.

Neither news organization decided to include this vital fact in their “exclusive.”

There were other problems too.

Fifteen paragraphs into the Times article was this key, blistering admission: “Officials cautioned that the five-page classified report was an initial assessment, with further reports to follow as more information is collected and Iran examines the three sites."

Continuing, the Times noted that “One official said that the reports people in the administration had been shown were “mixed” but that more assessments were yet to be done.”

So, this was a low confidence report.

But it made headlines for the Times.

In its reporting CNN did concede upfront that, “The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing and could change as more intelligence becomes available.”

But in an update, CNN buried a crucial piece of information 20 paragraphs down from its lede: “On Wednesday morning, a senior DIA official said in a statement that ‘We have still not been able to review the actual physical sites themselves, which will give us the best indication.’”

Second, the Times described its sources only in vague terms as “officials familiar with the findings.” This is the typical robotic, thumb sucking description military reporters often use that sounds authoritative. But, in fact, the Times tells us nothing about them.

Further, the sources never read the actual report. They were “briefed” on it.

Both news organizations reported that the officials were part of a “briefing.” This is very different than being part of a team that authored an intelligence report or an official who has been given direct access to original raw intelligence data.

Next, both news organizations refused to provide any credentials for their sources, even in the most generalized terms. We have no idea where they worked within the agency or their expertise. Nothing.

As a former Pentagon producer for ABC’s “Good Morning America,” I’m aware that it’s important to protect the identity of sources. That’s a sensible precaution.

But when breaking an explosive report, it necessary that reporters provide as much context and source identification as possible. It allows the reader to assess the credibility of the sources.

Both news organizations failed to do that.

Further, it’s curious that CNN also reported that they were in contact with “seven people briefed on it.”

That’s a lot of people. And it’s very unusual to have so many sources.

This suggests that the briefing was delivered in an auditorium before a large number of DIA officials. This is quite possible as the agency likely wished to brief its people on their historic mission as quickly as possible.

Finally, we have no idea if any of their sources were objective, or if they had political bias, or possessed any animus toward the President. Their motives aren’t known. Bad practice.

Perhaps trying to separate itself from the Times and CNN, the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday corrected the misleading and explosive CNN and Times allegations.

They prominently reported, “An intelligence report assessing that the U.S. military strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities had only set back Tehran’s nuclear program by a few months was ‘a preliminary, low-confidence assessment—not a final conclusion,’ the Defense Intelligence Agency said Wednesday.”

The Journal plainly stated, “The spy agency added that the assessment would ‘continue to be refined’ as more intelligence became available. A ‘low confidence’ intelligence finding can mean that the conclusions are based on information that is incomplete or not fully vetted and might change as more details become available.”

And, of course, the Times and CNN reports also are at odds with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi who on June 20 reported on the Iranian Natanz Nuclear Complex, saying, “the main cascade hall appears to have been attacked using ground-penetrating munitions…the strikes on the underground cascade halls were seriously damaging.” 2025,

Natanz was one of Iran’s primary enrichment sites. The mullahs installed over 18,400 centrifuges in an underground hall and about 700 centrifuges in an above ground pilot facility.

Then there is the Fordo nuclear site, the other key uranium enrichment site and the target of American B-2 Bombers.

David Albright, a former IAEA inspector and President of the Institute for Science and International Security (the acronym, unfortunately is ISIS) released on June 24 a 27-page post-attack analysis about the bombing of Iran’s sprawling nuclear facilities throughout the country, including Fordo.

His report along with associate Spencer Faragasso was so superb, on Thursday the Wall Street Journal decided to excerpt large parts of it on their opinion page.

ISIS found that the U.S. attacks resulted in “completely destroying all of the installed and otherwise operational centrifuges.” The B-2 attack was called “point targeting.”

Just so you don’t think I cherry picked a quote, Albright and Faragasso write that “point targeting not only completely destroyed that (Fordo) surface structure but was likely intended to focus at depth on the south end of (the) centrifuge cascade hall, which, once breached, would use the hall's long side walls to channel the blast wave through the entire length of centrifuge cascade hall completely destroying all of the installed and otherwise operational centrifuges. Interestingly, the bomb blast waves that would have been generated down the two halls from these two points of attack run perpendicular to one another, further increasing the likelihood of maximum damage and destruction.”

The Institute is a liberal nonprofit nuclear research organization. Importantly, its board includes people like Ben Rhodes, a key national security advisor to President Obama from 2009 to 2017.

Other Institute’s board members include many former United Nations officials. Further, ISIS has received significant funding from many left-leaning organizations, including the Ploughshares Fund which was behind the leftwing nuclear freeze movement, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefellers Brothers Fund.

It also received federal funding from the United States Institute of Peace.

Of course, the damage has been done. Headlines around the world proclaimed that Trump – once again – was misleading the public about his administration’s accomplishments.

But this story isn’t over.

It’s significant that two of the bylined national reporters for both stories also have blemished records for accuracy.

The Times’ Maggie Haberman and CNN’s Natasha Bertrand are among the bylined authors of their respective articles. Haberman also is a CNN political analyst.

Their presence may serve to irreparably discredit the accuracy of both articles.

Both high-profile nationally known reporters have a past with flawed investigative reports. Haberman triggered a federal investigation into Donald Trump’s ties to Russia collusion, which turned out to be a hoax.

And Bertrand published the claim that Hunter Biden’s laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

And both faced the fact that after years of beating their drums, their most sensational articles were discredited by Biden Justice Department officials.

Haberman generated a national firestorm over her claims that Paul Manafort, one of Trump’s 2016 campaign managers, sought to pass campaign data to a Russian with close ties to Vladimir Putin.

This was the beginning of the astounding Russian collusion scandal that only years later proved to be nothing more than a political campaign hoax perpetrated by Democrats and broadcast by the legacy media, most importantly by the Times’ Haberman.

In 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded, “no conspiracy or coordination ever existed between Russia and President Trump or the Trump campaign.”

This ultimately forced the Times to retract its key Haberman allegation of Trump’s collusion with Russia.

The Times retraction about Haberman’s article is classic, claiming Haberman only “misidentified” some people.

The editors stated, “A previous version of this article misidentified the people to whom Paul Manafort wanted a Russian associate to send polling data. Mr. Manafort wanted the data sent to two Ukrainian oligarchs, Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov, not Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch close to the Kremlin.”

Meanwhile, CNN’s Natasha Bertrand, then a Politico reporter, falsely reported that Hunter Biden’s laptop was not authentic.

Instead, she reported that it was disinformation produced by the Russians. The laptop’s existence was originally disclosed by the New York Post prior to the 2020 election. Its contents originally were devastating to both Hunter Biden and to the Biden family.

Bertrand wrote in 2020 that Hunter Biden’s laptop wasn’t real, but was “Russian disinfo,” or Russian disinformation.

She uncritically wrote that 51 former national security officials claimed Biden’s laptop release “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

“If we are right,” they added, “this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this.”=

But eventually, most news organizations conceded that the laptop was authentic and that the original national security letter was in fact a Democratic campaign disinformation campaign.

Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell testified in April 2023 before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees that Joe Biden’s senior campaign adviser, Antony Blinken, "played a role in the inception" of that public statement. Blinken later became Biden’s Secretary of State.

The authenticity of the laptop was so clear, Special Counsel David Weiss said in May 2024 that prosecutors planned to introduce the laptop as evidence in Hunter Biden’s felony gun trial.

The Justice Department official told the court that the laptop “contains significant evidence of the defendant’s guilt.”

Weiss said Hunter’s claim that the laptop was of Russian origin, was “a conspiracy theory with no supporting evidence.”

By the way, despite promises by President Joe Biden that he would not pardon his son, he did so, erasing Hunter’s gun and tax evasion charges and convictions

Eventually, these latest acts of misreporting by the Times and CNN will be corrected. But their headlines will persist. Their damage has been done.

In my opinion, it’s despicable to use journalism as a political weapon.

In the end, this case will not damage the American and Israeli military reputations.

But it will further damage the credibility of the Times, CNN and much of the legacy media.