He didn't bother to go look at a PBY himself or ask one of his minions at the Museum to do so.
It's worse than that. Just before deadline, I gave Adler a copy of the letter from Prof. Eagar. He replied, "It would be stronger, I think, if he reached this conclusion after also hearing and weighing Elgen's PBY case. But no question, it's a win for your side.
Now I just have to figure out how to work this into my story. "
I replied, "Elgen doesn't have a PBY case. It’s laughable. I didn’t want to waste time and insult their intelligence. I’ll have a report titled “Is 2-2-V-1 from a PBY?” ready later today. I’ll send you the link. If you like, I can ask Prof. Eagar to review it and comment."
I did send Adler the link and I did have Eagar review it and comment. Prof. Eagar wrote, "I have reviewed your email attachment concerning the PBY. It appears you have excellent responses to Mr. Long's “perfect match” for the upper PBY wing hypothesis."
So Adler knew full well that Long's PBY claim had crashed and sunk. Adler is a good journalist but he had to dance to the editor's tune and that tune was "It Ain't Necessarily So." Make no mistake, this article was conceived in the wake of the burst of publicity we received in late October and it's purpose, from the start, was to discredit TIGHAR. Unable to counter the message, they decided to shoot the messenger.