Fast-Forward Controversy

By: Matthew Felling
Topics: Media Issues

(CBS/AP)

This week's budding controversy at The New Republic is an interesting example of how journalism has changed in the Internet age. The rapid-fire pace of news gathering and disseminating has sped up the entire journalistic process ... and its detractors.

For example, check out this week's timeline in The New Republic case. The magazine – which fell prey to a dishonest contributor a decade ago, a story made into the movie "Shattered Glass" – is facing new allegations.

Saturday, July 21: The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reports on allegations being made about The New Republic's "Baghdad Diarist" – an ongoing series (3 so far) of reports filed by a soldier in Iraq. Critics had begun to assail the contributor for potential falsehoods in his reporting

Tuesday, July 24: The New York Times advances the story, featuring a quote from the magazine's editor committing "the full resources of the magazine" into investigating the concerns.

Thursday, July 26: In an online posting, The New Republic repeats its commitment to getting to the bottom of the story, and adds a letter from the contributor – who unmasks himself.

I am Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a member of Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division.

My pieces were always intended to provide my discreet view of the war; they were never intended as a reflection of the entire U.S. Military. I wanted Americans to have one soldier's view of events in Iraq.

All this transpired between a Saturday and the following Thursday.

Back in 1998, Stephen Glass was fired after Forbes magazine exposed that he had completely fabricated a story for The New Republic. In an internal investigation, the magazine found that 27 of his 41 pieces for the magazine– he began writing for them around Christmas of 1995 – contained fictionalized people and/or events. That's two years of problematic writing.

This writer makes no assessment of the writings of Private Beauchamp, true-to-life or fictitious. After reading reports from the war and having numerous off-the-record conversations, and knowing the strain our troops are under, I don't doubt the conditions in Iraq are harrowing and can bring out the worst in people. At the same time, however, his entries contain many anecdotes that warrant a closer look. This is a post about journalism, though, and it's worth noting that everything – both allegations of unethical writing and the responses to them – work at a faster pace than ever before.

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by memekiller July 26, 2007 10:40 PM EDT: Andrew Sullivan, with the best take, yet:

So why the craziness?

Partly, I think, new media hatred of TNR. Partly that Thomas is obviously a liberal Democrat who's also a soldier. But mainly, it seems to me, the conservative blogosphere has taken such an almighty empirical beating this last year that they have an overwhelming psychic need to lash out at those still clinging to sanity on the war. This Scott Thomas story is a godsend for these people, a beautiful distraction from the reality they refuse to face.

It combines all the usual Weimar themes out there: treasonous MSM journalists, treasonous soldiers, stories of atrocities that undermine morale (regardless of whether they're true or not), and blanket ideological denial. We have to understand that some people still do not believe that the U.S. is torturing or has tortured detainees, still do not believe that torture or murder or rape occurred at Abu Ghraib, still believe that everyone at Gitmo is a dangerous terrorist captured by US forces, and still believe we're winning in Iraq. If you believe all this and face the mountains of evidence against you, you have to act ever more decisively and emphatically to refute any evidence that might undermine this worldview.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/07/the-scott-thoma.html#more; Reply to this comment


by centralcal-2009 July 26, 2007 8:46 PM EDT: You left ABC News out of your time line. They reported on the story also.

I can understand you omitting bloggers, I guess. But you were oddly selective in your media outlets.; Reply to this comment


by memekiller July 26, 2007 6:44 PM EDT: "Are all over Beauchamp%u2019s anecdotes accurate? Frankly, I have no idea, but I%u2019ve seen very little evidence that raises doubts about his veracity. But the controversy has grown into something far bigger and more important.

A U.S. soldier was in the right%u2019s good graces until he strayed from the party line and noted the personal toll the war has taken on him and his compatriots. For that, he%u2019s been smeared, rather viciously."

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11600.html#more-11600

Apparently, allowing a US Soldier to post their experiences is anti-soldier, and the chicken hawks, bravely fighting the war from their computer keyboards, are posting the personal informaion of a soldier who risks their lives for this misadventure.

One wonders how things would be going in Iraq if the chickenhawks went and fought Al Qaeda with the same ferocity they do American Soldiers.; Reply to this comment


by memekiller July 26, 2007 5:59 PM EDT: "That's just crazy. All these people need to stop. They need to take a deep breath. They need to apologize to the people at TNR who've wasted huge amounts of time dealing with their nonsense. And they need to think a bit about the epistemic situation they're creating where information about Iraq that they don't want to hear -- even when published in a pro-war publication -- can just be immediately dismissed as fraudulent even though the misconduct it described was far, far less severe than all sorts of other well-document misconduct in Iraq."

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/scott_thomas_revealed.php; Reply to this comment


by dadmanly July 26, 2007 5:23 PM EDT: Your timeline omits any reference to Michael Goldfarb at WWS or Blackfive, who highlighted to TNR piece and asked MILBLOGGERS to weigh in.

Most if not all of the MILBLOGGER and other military criticism of Thomas/Beauchamp and TNR originated with these two bloggers.

Just found your precise sampling of the folks weighing somewhat curious.; Reply to this comment