It might be more helpful to point to some actual journalism, instead of an op-ed piece.
Since I don't have a financial times subscription, I couldn't get the older story. But I got this suggesting the French would be the continental nation doing the watching; I've copied the entire FT article below.
MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA: Fake papers relating to uranium from Niger 'were offered for sale'
By Mark Huband, Security Correspondent, in London
Financial Times; Jul 13, 2004
Fake documents that are at the centre of a controversy surrounding alleged Iraqi attempts to procure uranium from Niger were offered to an Italian newspaper for €15,000 ($18,600, £10,000), a US congressional report on Iraq has revealed.
The documents were handed to the US embassy in Rome in October 2002 by an Italian journalist who asked US officials to verify their authenticity. The US passed them to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, whose officials quickly discovered they were forgeries.
The original source of the documents isamystery, although it is known they were passed to the journalist by an Italian businessman who had served in Italy's armed forces.
The revelation that the businessman had offered to sell the documents, as well as details of the sum involved, is found in the 497-page US Senate intelligence committee report released last week, on the intelligence material used to support the case for war in Iraq.
The businessman has a criminal record for extortion in Italy, although European intelligence officials investigating the source said yesterday they were unaware of the sum demanded for the documents.
The exposure of the documents as fakes undermined a claim made by President George W. Bush that Iraq had sought to buy uranium and may have been trying to reconstitute its nuclear programme.
The UK government has stood by its claim that Iraq had sought to buy uranium, and its assertion is expected to be supported by an official inquiry headed by Lord Butler whose report is published tomorrow. The UK has made clear that its claim was not based on the evidence provided in the fake documents, and that it had other evidence that Iraq had tried to buy uranium.
The Senate report adds weight to these claims by detailing the extent to which French intelligence information supported that being gathered by other intelligence agencies. The French information was given particular weight because French companies control Niger's uranium output.
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd
Your distinction between 'actual journalism' and an 'op-ed piece' is a non-starter. There is more 'actual journalism' in the typical Mark Steyn column than in any twenty 'straight news' articles from the 'main stream' sources.
You may believe there is no editorial input to the coverage of the news by these sources, but there is a lot -- both in the stories they choose to report and in the way they report them.