For the benefit of those who don’t read NRO on the weekends, I can’t let Pete’s post go without follow-up. If you haven’t been online since Friday afternoon, you may have missed my apologies over misleading reporting from Lebanon. So I’d like to offer you some links. You can catch up here, and here, and here, and here, and here with posts that address, I think, most frequently asked questions. You can also read this, and this. (Or scroll down in “The Corner” or in “The Tank.”) Bottom line though: A regular freelancer for NRO went to Lebanon in September and blogged in “The Tank” from there. In two instances of which we’re aware, he mislead by not adequately sourcing – making clear he was relying on sources, not his own eyes for a scenes he described. We should have asked more questions. We didn’t. A well-intentioned reporter got sloppy. We got sloppy checking on him. We were wrong and I apologize.

We’re taking steps to prevent this in the future – including setting up some very easily found and checked corrective e-mail addresses – so questions about pieces and blogs can be raised in a quick and timely manner.

I hate that this happened, but I am grateful that it has been brought to our attention. We’ve apologized for it, and are now taking measures to keep such things from happening in the future. One of the great things about the interactivity of the web is that problems can be raised, questions can be asked, and all can be transparent – whether someone is making an argument in “The Corner” about a candidate or someone is reporting from the field. We do it from writer to writer — challenge one another, raise questions — on a regular basis, and we encourage readers to contact us to do the same. We get a lot of e-mails though, so we’re going to make that give-and-take process easier and more efficient. Readers need to know they can rely on what they’re reading and we need to know you can rely on us to be honest and reliable.