full disclosure: I wrote the "Who Killed the Virtual Case File" story for Spectrum, which ran last September.

Here's some more food for thought about the "reporting" behind the FBI story:

What's the news angle that warrants front page attention in the Post? That the Post reporters obtained the "unreleased" Aerospace report? Not news: the report was released to Spectrum at the end of April after nine months of litigating a Freedom of Information Act Request.

All the Post reporters had to do was google "virtual case file" and voila! the story pops up as number 1, right there for them to rewrite!

But say they are too lazy to bother googling. They just want the summary. The Spectrum article is the basis for the Wikipedia Entry on the Virtual Case File and the only external link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Case_File

The Spectrum article was the first and until the Post article, the only one to mention Matthew Patton, who was unearthed by dint of investigative reporting nowhere acknowledged in the Post article.

The Post article purports to turn a spotlight on SAIC, in part by quoting David Kay, the Iraq weapons inspector, who was a former SAIC VP--but who had absolutely no firsthand knowledge of the VCF project.

The Post article uncritcally takes FBI CIO Azmi's word that the follow up project Sentinel is on-budget and on-time, when other news outlets have recently reported about a growing sense within the FBI that this project is doomed to a fate similar to the VCF's.