The executive editor of the Chattanooga Times Free Press now says he “regrets” readers were not informed that their reporter, Edward Lee Pitts, planted a question for Donald Rumsfeld: Paper Regrets Handling of Rumsfeld Story.

“In hindsight, information on how the question was framed should have been included in Thursday’s story in the Times Free Press. It was not,” the paper’s publisher and executive editor, Tom Griscom, said in a note to readers published Friday. …

Griscom said Pitts “used the tools available to him as a journalist to report on a story that has been and remains important to members of the 278th and those back at home.”

Pitts had sent an e-mail to co-workers back in Tennessee on Wednesday outlining his role.

“I was told yesterday that only soldiers could ask questions so I brought two of them along with me as my escorts,” he wrote. “Before hand we worked on questions to ask Rumsfeld about the appalling lack of armor their vehicles going into combat have.” He also said he went to the officer running the question and answer session “and made sure he knew to get my guys out of the crowd.”

But the story by Pitts published Thursday about the question to Rumsfeld made no mention of Pitts’ own role. …

In commending Pitts’ work, Griscom, who served as White House communications director under President Reagan, said Pitts “used what was available to him to get an answer to a story that we have covered and that has been important.”

Kelly McBride, a member of the ethics faculty at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, said she did not fault the reporter for getting help with asking the question, but described the failure to include that information with his story as “dishonest with his readers.”

“I suspect some people would see it as manipulative,” McBride said. “I suspect Rumsfeld felt manipulated.”

Notice how nobody seems concerned about the unethical nature of what Pitts did—least of all Pitts himself, who bragged openly about setting up that soldier. The only problem, according to the people quoted by the Associated Press, is that readers weren’t told about Pitts’ machinations.

But media is supposed to report news. Not manufacture it.