NEW YORK (AP) -- The host of HBO's ''Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel'' on Monday defended his monthly sports magazine against claims by a British soccer ball maker that it delivered a ''pack of lies'' with a 2008 segment about child labor in India.
Gumbel told a federal court jury that ''Children of Industry'' was the kind of hard-hitting journalism he had in mind when he created a monthly sports magazine that would go way beyond fawning sportscasters whose idea of an interview is: ''What kind of pitch did you hit, Bob?''
Gumbel was called to the witness stand by HBO in the latter stages of a trial in which Mitre Sports International is saying it was libeled when it was the only company identified in a 21-minute segment that showed children stitching soccer balls in Jalandhar, India, for a nickel an hour.