Agreed. Mortensen will say he's used these sources before, they were very reliable and he had no reason to doubt them. He didn't know what to make of Rapaport's report a week later with different information and was as surprised as anyone when the real numbers came out. He'll hem and haw over whether he was deliberately misled and will claim that, "Sometimes, these things happen. That's part of the business." His basic position will be that it wasn't really his fault as he didn't know the information was wrong and he has no idea if there was any malice behind supplying him with false information. In his eyes, it will be no ones fault. He didn't make the story go viral.
Oh, and as far as making a retraction or correction to his original story, he'll claim he struggled with that decision, but the opportunity never really presented itself.
The EEI guys may start out tough with him, but they'll end up sympathizing with him over being burned by a source and never really press him about his silence after it was revealed he was wrong or why he never questioned the motive of his sources for lying to him. Actually, Minihane will have some harsh words for him, but he'll save those for after the end of the call.