Personally, what I got from that statement was that the author didn't think the issue was serious enough to pursue the investigation, and is an honest person so

Personally, what I got from that statement was that the author didn't think the issue was serious enough to pursue the investigation, and is an honest person so didn't feel it necessary to conceal his intent. Google totally made the wrong call here, because as you say, someone who was looking to write a deep, hard-hitting muckraking piece probably would have lied.