NYT Public Editor Smacksdown NYT Report That Chinese Drained Information in Snowden Laptop

The NYT reporters on the story never actually had a source that said it happened. You see, they reported that sources "believed" it happened---as in "speculated' rather than "believed.". NYT's public editor, Margaret Sullivan, smacksdown this reporting:

Two sentences in the middle of a Times article on such a sensitive subject – though they may be off the central point – have the power to sway the discussion or damage a reputation. What The Times writes can quickly, and sometimes harmfully, become pundit fodder.

In otherwords, the NYT public editor has to remind NYT reporters that they can't write misleading sentences even in the middle of a story!