One day after ABC settled a $10 billion lawsuit by Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. with an unusual public apology, critics within and outside the network were questioning whether its capitulation would have a lasting effect on investigative reporting, particularly of such powerful industries as tobacco. Not since NBC apologized to General Motors Corp. for a 1992 program featuring a staged truck explosion has a television network backed down in such a public way in the face of a corporate lawsuit.

The damage done is not just to the credibility of ABC’s news operation and the chilling effect it might have on aggressive reporting, said Bill Kovach, curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University. There’s also the impact on society. This slows down a movement in the country to question whether or not cigarettes should be treated as a drug.

But Lawrence Grossman, a former NBC News president, offered a different perspective. I think we don’t do enough of saying we made a mistake, he said. Admittedly this was done under a lawsuit situation, but they were smart to say it was wrong. One of the problems with all the folks in news is they’ve got a glass jawthey can dish it out but they can’t take it.

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