“We are thankful Reuters has withdrawn its story from August 2024 regarding USADA’s use of informants after investigating the sourcing of its information and finding that it did not adhere to the company’s ethical principles against bias. This is the first time in USADA’s 24 years of existence that we’ve seen a major news outlet withdraw an entire anti-doping story based on biased sourcing.
Prior to the story’s release, we detailed the biased sourcing to Reuters, as the reporting relied on a WADA spokesperson as the source without doing sufficient diligence to confirm accurate and truthful information. We also pointed them to another source who previously worked at WADA and knew accurate facts not included in the reporting. Following publication of the article, we again alerted Reuters to the major concerns with this reporting and the sourcing. We have also requested that WADA retract its false, defamatory, and biased statement that they published immediately following the publication of this now withdrawn Reuters story.
It is high time for all of those who value clean sport to join the IOC and public authorities to get WADA right and restore credibility to the movement. Accountability starts and stops at the top, and tactics like those revealed today by WADA only fracture, divide, and undermine the credibility of the global anti-doping movement.”
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