"The e-mail message is unlike previous ones sent by those claiming to hold Pearl, U.S. officials said, suggesting it may have come from a different source. The message sent Friday, for example, did not include photographs, had better spelling and differed in other ways than previous e-mails, according to officials."
Note that they're pretending now that they never saw the suspicious email themselves before they went with the story! Whoever originally decided this was breaking news was an utter fool. (It seems they've unpublished the original embarrassing article)