The investigative report, issued weeks later, found no evidence that we had struck anything other than an enemy-occupied desert camp. But by then it was too late. The initial false reports had become ground truth; correcting it was not considered news. We had once again lost the battle of the narrative. As Churchill noted, “A lie gets halfway around the world before truth gets its pants on.” In our age, a lie can get a thousand times around the world before the truth gets its pants on.
