Lots of appeals for sympathy, fairness, apologies, respect and faith in the honesty of his ‘reporter’.
It’s all baloney, and a attempt to deflect justified criticism.

Mr. Martin, I’ll put it to you plain. With all the staged photoshoots, photoshopping of images, misleading captioning and other visual fun and games we’ve been noticing, you’re just not credible.
YOU NEED TO EARN OUR TRUST. You haven’t done that. In fact what you’ve done with your statement is to make the initial story reek even more of manipulative tactics, an agenda and propaganda.

If you can’t provide us with the real deal with no embroidery, we’re not interested in listening to your protests.