To a certain extent, that's right, but it is also an objectively important news item to report. When TIME goes around digging into backgrounds on resumes, that is an critical point in the threshold of public criticism, and when they find something that isn't 100% accurate, that's another threshold. Personally, I don't think " wagon training" is going to make the issue go away at this point.
Did he say he was a Cherokee Indian?
Well, TIME didn't look at his resume. They looked at the biography on the FEMA web site. The web site says Brown was an assistant city manager. A representative from the city says he was an assistant to the city manager.
A representative of FEMA says he started as an intern and worked his way up.
Now the government keeps careful records on every employee and obviously records their job title and their duties.
Why is it that this reporter didn't look farther into this issue rather than reporting contradictory stories without checking into this farther?
You would think that a responsible journalist wouldn't want to libel someone with such accusations without getting the facts.