Sucker Punch
Richard Miniter has an analysis over at Pajamas Media looking at how The New Republic let itself get suckered by "Scott Thomas" Beauchamp. It get pretty ugly at times.
The New Republic has not responded to repeated phone calls from PajamasMedia.com.
Foer’s office voicemail indicates that he is on paternity leave until August 15. On the 16th and 17th, he did not return phone calls. What appears to be his home phone number—the only Foer listed in D.C.—has been “temporarily disconnected.”
Perhaps a cone of silence has descended. A longtime New Republic editor told me that she was not sure that she was allowed to discuss the Beauchamp affair, citing the magazine’s lawyers.
If the magazine had provided a full and immediate accounting of the incident, the story might look very different, full of mitigating factors and useful distinctions. It is a pity that the editors did not provide it.
But The New Republic cannot control the story. An insider-turned-whistleblower and the fabricator’s former fiancée, as well as other sources, have spoken to PajamasMedia.com—providing a plethora of new details that raise new questions.
Those questions include: Did the fabricator’s wife, Elspeth Reeve, fact-check her husband’s articles? Did her staff position make other fact-checkers go easy on him? Why didn’t Reeve’s knowledge of Beauchamp’s character and history make her skeptical of his work? (Remember the old journalist saw: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”) Did Foer’s friendship with Beauchamp affect the fact-checkers or provoke Foer to defend him in the face of mounting evidence? And, why was the whistle-blower the only New Republic staffer to be fired? Finally, what does the magazine intend to do to ensure that it does not get fooled again?
Frankly TNR has damaged itself and shows no signs of trying to fix that damage. I suspect that the stonewalling is going to continue and TNR simply will not ever acknowledge it was in the wrong here. Ultimately, I think that strategy will do far more damage to TNR than 'fessing up and apologizing. Others looking at this today – and frankly writing more about it than I have been: Power Line, Confederate Yankee, Townhall, A Blog For All, Sister Toldjah, Riehl World View, TigerHawk, Little Green Footballs,
Blogosphere, Media, War | Gaius August 20, 2007
By daveinboca, August 20, 2007 @ 12:10 pm
One commenter to Confederate Yankee came up with this solecism:
“Yes, Beauchamp’s articles may contain some untruths. They might be total fiction. But it doesn’t matter, does it?”
Is it just me or doesn’t that sound like Evan Thomas’ lame excuse for Newsweak when the Duke Lacrosse stripper-lies surfaced?
Foer should be fired.
“The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong.”
Sounds like the commenter was just the average CSJ graduate—cheating on his/her ethics exam.
By Neo, August 20, 2007 @ 1:57 pm
The steady drip .. drip .. drip of this story and the absence of any meaningful blowback (except that “it doesn’t matter, does it?â€) shows that the “search for truth” isn’t as important for the TNR and it’s lovers than the “search for truth that is inconvient for their enemies.”