http://www.cnn.com/US/9807/02/media/

In this story:

• A spate of journalistic stumbles
• 'Embellishing' stories
• 'They were trying too hard'
• A healthy thing?

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The Operation Tailwind story, which was produced and broadcast on CNN and appeared in Time magazine and on CNN Interactive, is the latest in a series of recent cases that have caused major embarrassment to the journalistic community.

The story, which CNN News Group Chairman, President and CEO Tom Johnson retracted and apologized for in a statement released Thursday, reported that a deadly nerve gas was secretly used by U.S. servicemen to kill American defectors in Laos in 1970.

It was regarded as a major scoop and aired June 7 on the first broadcast of "NewsStand: CNN & TIME."

After an outcry from veterans, the Pentagon and others, CNN requested an investigation by Floyd Abrams, an independent media attorney.

Abrams concluded that CNN's reporting could not support the allegation that the poison gas sarin was used, that American defectors were targeted or that they were even in the Laotian camp where the mission was carried out in 1970.

"The story wasn't there," Abrams said. "It was a mistake. It was a bad mistake, and CNN has apologized for it, as I think they should."

Walter Isaacson, Time's managing editor, also issued a retraction.

The Tailwind case brings up one of the oldest dilemmas in journalism: the iron law of reporting the truth as best as can be determined, as opposed to what a reporter may believe but cannot prove.

While Abrams criticized the news gathering, he said it could not be suggested that the people involved fabricated information. If anything, he said, the serious flaws in the broadcast stemmed from the journalists' deep belief in the story and the way they discounted contrary information.

"That doesn't necessarily mean that the story isn't true," Abrams said in an interview on CNN. "But what it does mean, then, is that at this moment we simply do not have enough evidence, in my view, for any conclusion to be reached -- that the presidents have been lying to us for all these years and that what we've been told was just a pack of lies."

The incident is the latest in a recent spate of stumbles in American journalism.

Just last Sunday, The Cincinnati Enquirer ran a front-page apology to Chiquita Brands International Inc., saying its series of stories questioning the company's business practices were "untrue" and based on stolen voice mail.

The newspaper fired the lead reporter and agreed to pay more than $10 million to settle any claims against it by the company, even though no lawsuit had been filed against the newspaper.

On Thursday, however, Chiquita filed a federal lawsuit against Michael Gallagher, the lead reporter.

Last month, Boston Globe metro columnist Patricia Smith, a Pulitzer Prize finalist this year, was forced to resign after admitting to fabricating people and quotes in four columns she wrote this year. Smith, too, was fired.

And in May, Stephen Glass, associate editor of The New Republic, was fired after confessing he had "embellished" a story about computer hackers. The magazine said he had fabricated material in 27 of 41 articles over the past three years.

When it was announced that the Tailwind story would be investigated, "NewsStand: CNN & TIME" co-host and CNN Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield said on the air: "We mean it when we say we intend to hold ourselves to the same standards we ask other institutions to meet. We will have an extended look at the controversy and the criticism in the near future."

But April Oliver and Jack Smith, the story's top producers, told The Associated Press on Thursday they still believed the story was accurate. Oliver and Smith told The AP they had been fired and were disheartened by the lack of support from CNN.

"These shadow warriors don't like us looking into their business and their dark spaces," Oliver said of the military special forces. "They're doing their best to make sure that no one else does. I'm not a single-minded, one-point-of-view producer. Check with anyone, and you'll find that's inaccurate. It's part of killing the messenger."

"We presented the facts that we gathered," Smith said. "Let the people judge. This was a report on America's secret army. There is no documentation."

Said former CBS correspondent Ike Pappas: "I think what is misunderstood a lot today is the enormous pressure that reporters and producers are under to come up with a story on the premiere or a debut of a broadcast."

But others were less sympathetic.

"It's clear that some media executives are just interested in the ratings and are not using traditional news judgment," said Peter Prichard, president of the Freedom Forum, which advocates free press and free speech.

"They were trying too hard to start that series with a big bang, and the journalism was sloppy," Reuven Frank, former president of NBC News, said of the original CNN report.

"This is about reporters who fell in love with their story and couldn't view it objectively," said Robert Lichter, president of The Center for Media and Public Affairs, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media research organization. "That is the job of editors and senior staff, to dampen journalistic enthusiasm that can't be supported by the facts."

David Westin, president of ABC News, said CNN handled its apology "in an exemplary fashion." And Roger Ailes, who as chairman of Fox's news division runs CNN rival Fox News Channel, applauded the retraction as "a principled and statesmanlike position that only improves journalism overall."

"That's the least they could do," said Joan Konner, publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review. "This is the most egregious kind of error that a news organization can make: unreliable sources for a story damaging to all concerned parties. It severely tarnishes CNN, which has a very good record, and Time magazine as well."

"I think it's a good day when any of us, any journalistic institution, will strongly investigate itself and will forthrightly admit when wrong," said Michael Kramer, editorial director of Brill's Content, a new magazine that reports on the news media's performance.

"These have not been happy times," said Jane Kirtley of the Washington-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "I really am aghast as I look at what's been happening."

But she noted that CNN, Time and other news outlets have responded forthrightly to errors: "It's a healthy thing for news organizations, instead of brazening out a story that is flawed, to say to their readers, 'We were wrong.'"

Correspondent Garrick Utley, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.