Well, it's a shitty situation in a shitty country, that much is certain.

But there's also a cost/benefit analysis to do here. They have to weigh the likelihood that Trump starts making their job harder, or even impossible to do vs the cost presented by the lack of clarity and possible loss of integrity that reporting like this introduces. Ultimately, they must have decided that it was better to do politically compromised reporting that let the story go unreported.

I mean it's not a good situation for journalists in this country, I don't envy them.