I realize I owe an apology to my ATLAS colleagues.
In a post-Higgs-announcement article where I was listing some random "post-mortem" considerations, I wrote a paragraph which could be read as an accusation of malpractice in one of the recent ATLAS analyses. I was misled by the fact that I had no access to the details of the
actual results being shown at ICHEP on the matter -my information was partial and I was not sure whether it was public or not; it was second-hand and I had no way to check its real source.
When I wrote that paragraph I was aware that its contents could be potentially damaging to ATLAS, but on the other hand I thought it was important information that was worth pointing out. So I wrongly outweighted the need of being a gentleman with my colleagues across the ring with the journalistic loyalty to my readers here. That was a lapse of good judgement. Furthermore, it transpires that it is quite possible that the information I distributed is not even correct.
In the same paragraph of that article I did write very clearly that I fully acknowledged the genuine result of ATLAS, but that was probably not enough. So I apologize to my colleagues who felt harmed by my posting. I have now removed the offending part from the article.
Being a blogger and being part of a scientific collaboration are two almost fully incompatible things. It is sometimes excessively hard, when not downright impossible, to be both loyal to one's colleagues -or even one's competitors, as in this case- and write honestly about one's research. But I am also convinced of the importance of distributing information on basic research through this means of communication. I have not drawn logical conclusions from these facts yet.
