CNN obtained a personal journal that belonged to the slain American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and broadcast reports based on its contents against the wishes of the Stevens family, according to relatives and State Department officials who were asked to intervene by the family.

CNN obtained the journal in Benghazi, where Mr. Stevens and three other Americans were killed in an attack by militants on the American consulate in the city on Sept. 11. It wasn't clear exactly how CNN obtained the ambassador's writings.

...