@marvin100
You are correct that he may have included enough tentative language (“purports,” “appears,” and so on) to be able able to escape charges of outright lying–if outright lying is all we are concerned about.
I would say that the charge of dishonesty nevertheless still applies because Schaeffer changes his story completely to match whatever narrative suits his agenda. When a College Confidential post reports that Koreans are selling copies of the June 2014 U.S. test–well, Bob Schaeffer’s “sources” have conveniently sent him that. When it turns out that the June 2014 U.S. was a red herring and that the actual tests used were June 2014 international and October 2012 international–well, no problem: in hindsight, it turns out that Schaeffer’s “sources” had also sent him copies of June 2014 international and October 2012 international, although he didn’t think to mention those before. And that story about the June 2014 U.S. test? Well, that little embarrassment is conveniently forgotten.
A disinterested observer examining the facts here would have to conclude that the Korean SAT cheating industry is laughably inept and that anyone trying to cheat on the January test had been thoroughly routed by ETS and probably lost a good deal of money as well. That’s not how Strauss and Schaeffer are spinning these events, though; no matter how circumstances change, those two always seem to have exactly the right anonymous information they need to make their own narrative stand–but they never offer any proof.
I’m completely sure I’m not the only one who finds this state of affairs more than suspicious. As other posters have pointed out, this is not journalism. A journalist can rely on her own anonymous sources, but second-hand anonymous sources? From an advocate with a dog in the fight? That’s basically what all these stories are–“I heard it from a friend who who hates the SAT that he heard from some other guy I don’t know that the SAT is bad.” Who ever heard of such a thing appearing in a respectable newspaper?
As I’ve said before, @marvin100, I don’t find my motivations to be especially relevant or worthy of exploration, and I’m not going to be goaded by language like “vendetta,” “beef,” “smear,” and so on.