Crocodile Tears From TNR
Howard Kurtz writes about the "Scott Thomas" kerfluffle today and has a quote from TNR editor Franklin Foer that is stunningly hypocritical:
As conservative bloggers yesterday continued to challenge the veracity of Beauchamp's accounts, Foer said: "It is really unfortunate that someone like Scott, who was really only trying to tell his particular story, has become a pawn in the debate over the war and the Weekly Standard's efforts to press an ideological agenda."
Foer is, of course, the one who made Beauchamp a pawn in the first place. In an effort to smear all soldiers, Foer published what can only be described as an ideologically-driven account of things Beauchamp supposedly did. I talked about this whole thing with my son - and he believes Beauchamp took a small incident and embellished them into the tall tales that TNR chose to publish. He bases that on his combat experience. As he put it: "You can tell a story two ways, one to make the soldier look like a psycho, the other to make the soldier look like a hero." Beauchamp chose the former and TNR was happy to run with it.
Foer does his best to whip up sympathy for Beauchamp but it sounds hollow:
The magazine's editor, Franklin Foer, disclosed in an interview that Beauchamp is married to a New Republic staffer, and that is "part of the reason why we found him to be a credible writer." Foer also said Beauchamp "has put himself in significant jeopardy" and "lost his lifeline to the rest of the world" because military officials have taken away his laptop, cellphone and e-mail privileges.
Wah. Well, Beauchamp chose to write as he did and TNR chose to publish it - without any pre-publication fact-checking. Foer admits they are now trying to check it. Responsible journalists used to wait until they were reasonably sure of the facts before sending the story out to the public. TNR obviously does not do that - by their own admission. Given TNR's past history with publishing falsified stories, that is a startling admission. It also indicates a disastrous corporate culture within TNR that will cause them real trouble, real soon.
Other Links to this Post
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Flopping Aces — Friday, 27 July , 2007 @ 10:47 am
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Blue Star Chronicles — Friday, 27 July , 2007 @ 6:30 pm
By Kathy, Friday, 27 July , 2007 @ 5:41 pm
As he put it: “You can tell a story two ways, one to make the soldier look like a psycho, the other to make the soldier look like a hero.”
With all due respect to your son, I think there’s a third way to tell a story, and that is without the intentionality to “make” the soldier “look” like either a psycho or a hero. The way to do that is to simply tell the truth of whatever happened. In most cases, doing that will leave the soldier looking like a human being — which is, I believe, what most soldiers are.
By Chris, Friday, 27 July , 2007 @ 7:42 pm
It has become so commonplace for a sensational story to later turn out to be exaggerated or even false that no one is surprised. Why fact check when that might prove to be inconvenient in spreading the meme? Corrections are simple, short, and rarely noticed in any case.
By Kathy, Saturday, 28 July , 2007 @ 7:40 pm
It has become so commonplace for a sensational story to later turn out to be exaggerated or even false that no one is surprised.
Can you give an example, Chris? Because I actually think the opposite is true in Iraq.