TIME magazine didnt do anything like that. They most likely got a call from the state department in between their Iran invasion planning meetings to say "hey, we've got a totally legit guy on the inside of rhe iranian ministry of health with an EXPLOSIVE story you wanna talk to him?"
That guy will be getting paid to risk his life talking to the enemy and he will know that he shouldnt disappoint.
The US paid all sorts of informants to provide information on WMDs and shockingly, they told the state department what it wanted to hear and TIME printed all of that nonsense too.