“The piece should not have aired because it did not meet NBC News reporting standards,” an editor’s note said in place of the story online after it aired Friday on its highly-rated “Today” show. The package, from national correspondent Miguel Almaguer, made assertions that were attributed to unnamed sources and appeared to raise questions about the circumstances of the attack. A network source told CNN it pulled the segment after the source of the report’s information was found to be unreliable.
“The decision was made to remove the segment after it was determined, shortly after it aired, that the main source for the information was unreliable regarding the question of the circumstances that the police encountered when they arrived at the house, specifically what the police saw and how far the attacker was from the door,” the source said. In the wake of the attack, prominent right-wing media personalities have pushed a number of false conspiracy theories about the assault.