Al Jazeera’s Deborah Davies went on the Today Show this morning to defend her publication’s reporting of Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning’s alleged connection to HGH shipments. The meat of the interview is above, and you’ll see Davies deftly turn away the hosts’ attempts to poke holes in Al Jazeera’s report.
Some dumb people will watch this interview and say, “Al Jazeera is backpedaling!” simply because Davies reiterates that the documentary never directly accuses Peyton Manning of taking HGH, but instead points out that HGH was repeatedly sent to Manning’s wife, a claim that Manning himself has seemingly acknowledged as fact, under shady circumstances.
Davies isn’t backpedaling here, she’s just being very clear about what exactly her report does and does not say. What it says is that HGH—a scarce drug that is illegal to prescribe off-label and is supposed to be reserved for use by people who suffer from serious conditions like growth hormone deficiency, short bowel syndrome, or HIV wasting—was prescribed off-label to Ashley Manning. Davies can’t come right out and say that the conclusion to be drawn from her report is that Peyton Manning probably used HGH, but she can ask the dummies who host the Today Show to draw their own conclusions.