The sad deterioration of the Economist magazine

Now this once respected magazine is reduced to reporting silly unfounded rumors:  "Rumours are rife that Mr Assad’s air force has bombed civilian areas close to military targets struck by America, creating confusion over who should be blamed."  Let us say that you want to print rumors that you feel are beneficial to your cause.  Can you not at least print logical rumors.  I mean, the US planes and satellites are swarming over and the Syrian planes can just come close and not be noticed by US planes? How dumb is that?