This is the worrying bit for me. "Even when confronting some of them, the reporting and producing team sought ways to show his story could still turn out to be

This is the worrying bit for me. "Even when confronting some of them, the reporting and producing team sought ways to show his story could still turn out to be true." It says they didn't seek to mislead the public and yet they were pulling the story at the seams to make it fit. Journalism should operate entirely on the scientific method. Assume false until you have nothing left to poke holes wit.