IMHO, a lot of the confusion / misunderstanding / misleading (call it what you want) is down to people being too quick to give "obvious" answers to questions without conducting a detailed investigation e.g. if after a stage,the question about what cassette the rider was using was asked, it would be easy to say 11-28 'cos that is what they normally use. If it subsequently turned out to be 11-25, the Daily Mail and its adherents here would be shouting "cover up ! / lies!!" As for Cope's trip, it appears he was making the journey anyway, so why not use him to bring the package. When I was working on a project in Zurich, I asked if anyone coming out in the next couple of days could bring a couple of USB memory sticks with them. Sure, I could have gone round the corner to Banhofstrasse and got them there but a) it was extra hassle and b) company policy to only use approved USB sticks (a bit like the Alain Baxter point mentioned above). However according to the Daily Mail and its followers that would have been presented as a 1000 mile round trip to deliver USB sticks that could easily be sourced locally.
Questions have been asked if Brailsford is lying and yet AFAIK, none have been asked if Lawton is being completely accurate with his recollections (any recordings, contemporaneous notes, witnesses etc?).
After (and before) all of this I believe the following.
Sky was not the well oiled, smooth machine as it was reputed to be (by the Press!). I always thought this as exemplified by the "No plan B" approach.
Sutton may well be very good at his coaching job but he should not be in charge of an operation. This is not a mean-spirited comment, but being "High heid yin" requires a different skill set.
A number of journalists want to be like a latter day Walsh except Walsh who feels grieved that he wasn't told about the TUEs (it would have been odd if had been but Thomas and other team mates weren't) and is trying to regain some sort of witch finder general reputation (he should have a good look at rugby if he wants some high percentage drug use headlines).
The Daily Mail-esque presentation of the questions will lead to a general reduction in information available and certainly a time lag if all it does is allow off the cuff answers to be taken out of context. In this regard, Sky are quite correct to batten down the hatches and only release fully verified information when it suits them, not the Daily Mail, Matt Lawton or the Katie Hopkins look alike on the forums
.. and for the record, I am queasy about TUEs in general, don't like Sky's racing style, effective though it is and think that BC needs a complete management overhaul.
