BY TED GUP

It was barely a month ago that Time and CNN touted one of the great journalistic coups of the year -- an exclusive investigative report that alleged the United States used deadly Sarin nerve gas in Laos in 1970. As if that claim were not shocking enough, the report went on to say the targets of Operation Tailwind were not enemy Laotians but American defectors.

To many, the story seemed too shocking to be true. Serious questions were immediately raised about its accuracy, leading CNN to hire First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams to conduct an independent investigation. Abrams issued a 60-page report that blew a hole in the story big enough to sink the USS Missouri. Today, both organizations admitted that the story was unsupported by facts. The two joined-at-the-corporate-hip media giants issued not merely a correction but a mea culpa, deeply regretting any damage caused by their colossal error.

I wish I could say I was surprised by it all, but I was not. I distinctly remember cringing as I watched the June 9th exposé and then read it in Time. Like many others, I was suspicious that the story was flat-out wrong.

My misgivings were in part based on the incredible nature of the story itself: that such a secret should remain intact for 28 years, that the Pentagon would expose its own ground troops to such lethal agents and finally, that the U.S. would risk worldwide condemnation for momentary advantage against a single forgotten hamlet. But I had other reasons to be suspicious. As a former investigative reporter for Time, I remembered only too well the organization's propensity to risk its own credibility in exchange for a journalistic coup.

Little, it seems, has changed.

To be sure, Time and CNN are not the only news organizations with egg on their faces. One year ago the San Jose Mercury News was forced to recant its notorious 1996 "Dark Alliance" series alleging CIA involvement in inner-city drug dealing. And in the last two months, journalistic credibility has hit bottom. Bogus or questionably obtained stories have surfaced at the New Republic, Boston Globe and Cincinnati Enquirer, revealing a cadre of gullible editors willing to embrace the implausible and reporters who get things wrong and make things up.

It was concerns over just these kinds of shoddy practices that led me to resign from Time in the fall of 1993. I had seen too many stories in which healthy skepticism was surrendered before a rush to create "buzz." Never did I see evidence of outright fabrication, but rather something more insidious -- an atmosphere in which expedience won out over common sense. The motto "when in doubt, leave it out" yielded to "too good to check out."

In 1993, Time's editor was Jim Gaines. He had jumped directly into the job from People magazine, and many reporters concluded he had brought People's news values to Time. One Time story featured photos of what were described as 11-year-old boy prostitutes in Moscow -- photos that turned out to be bogus. But even after the magazine discovered it had been had, it merely spoke of the complexities of covering Moscow and "the possibility that a mistake has been made." There were several such contretemps, before and after Gaines' regime. Some were more serious, blighting innocent reputations and resulting in at least one out-of-court settlement and an ongoing suit.

Most disturbing of all was the infamous cover story about the downing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which drugs and government deception were alleged. The story played neatly into the hands of Pan Am lawyers seeking to shirk responsibility for the airline's own abysmal security lapses. Those in Time's Washington Bureau familiar with the facts were not permitted to see the story until the last minute. It was their conclusion that editors did not want to face challenges to the story.

"Exclusives" at Time were sometimes treated like meringues -- reporters had to tiptoe gingerly around them, suggesting that the stories were delicate and prone to collapse of their own weight. Those who did challenge them were dismissed as envious. There was a running joke that when Time had an investigative story, it was like a whore with a baby -- it had no idea what to do with it.

N E X T+P A G E | Why I had to leave