Well, they published the results of their long investigation, and while I ought to be charitable – it’s difficult when they go on for 15 pages and don’t say much other than that they feel very sorry for themselves, abused by the military public affairs apparatus, and wronged by right-wing bloggers, essentially it is an Emily Litella “Never Mind…”.
Personally, a two-sentence “Sorry about that, here’s what we’re going to do to get it right next time” would have made me far happier.
I can think of more than a few holes in the piece, but I have to go on the roof and install a weather station as a part of my effort to make the case to my city government that they should let me put up a windmill. Maybe later this afternoon.
Meanwhile go read it yourself and see what you think, and watch Bob Owens on the issues.
These guys could give Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond lessons in filibustering.
Franklin Foer (gravel-sucking plecostomus):
It’s funny that a former porn actor is ten times the journalist Foer is, even without the alleged fact-checkers. I wonder how long Foer struggled with the temptation to render it as “gay porn actor”.
Goodbye, New Republic.
The CNN debates, Dan Rather, Bilal Hussein, Jamil Hussein, Walter Duranty, CNN in Iraq before the war, North Vietnamese double agents working for the American press during the sixties and seventies, Fake but Accurate, Flushed Korans, dead families that show up on television a few days after they are announced to be victims of a massacre, bodies in a freezer in New orleans during Katrina, Raped babies during Katrina, cannibalism during Katrina, hding Al Qaeda massacre, headless bodies that don’t exist… Isn’t this latest by the TNR just sort of par for the course? Should we really pretend that the TNR is the exception rather than the rule? And that catching them has changed the journalism culture at all? Isn’t the real problem here that journalists see their true value in influencing events rather than reporting them truthfully?
TNR’s explanation borders on the ridiculous. They spend 15 pages defending their “journalistic methods” and “fact checking,” suggesting that Beauchamp’s stories were “corroborated” by fellow soldiers (including one who seems to have been discharged for mental instability).
Then the last paragraph states, in a very matter-of-fact manner, they cannot rely on his word and that the stories are probably not true.
Just plain stupid.
Actually, they don’t say that the stories are “probably not true,” they say that they can’t verify the stories as true (in fact, they present plenty of evidence that the stories were true, and that, big surprise, the Army was pursuing an ass-covering policy during this whole ordeal). For those who aren’t blinded by ideology, it’s a big distinction, and TNR should take some measure of pride that they maintain enough integrity not to let a story they publish pass if they aren’t entirely convinced of its authenticity, even if they have grounds to believe its true. It’s a lesson conservative bloggers should have learned before publishing the discredited stories by the “Swift Boaters” in 2004.
#3 If we’re compiling lists, don’t forget the NRO
“In The Tank: Did National Review Reporter Make His Stories Up?”:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/01/in-the-tank-did-national_n_74954.html
or Time magazine’s “Joe Klein,”:http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/wednesday/chi-1128edit4nov28,0,4272704.story who was nailed passing along false Republican talking points “without bothering to check their veracity.”:http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/11/29/tribune/index.html
Come on Alan, Bob Owens and AL have been all over those stories already.
You act as if they’ve ignored them or something.
And seriously, you don’t think this Beauchamp affair is over do you? You’ll know it’s over when Mattel’s stock drops 16% in one day.
Alan you haven’t done anything to dispute my thesis. Journalists (all of them) are much more concerned with influencing events than reporting them.
Steve on the other hand says that the NRO’s story is gospel. Do you agree with Steve? Or do you concur that journalism, every single bit of it on both sides of the ideological divide, is about controlling the reader’s (or viewer’s) reaction rather than educating him?
Oops, I mean the TNR’s story is gospel, but Steve’s fact challenged interpetation of events could apply to either equally, couldn’t it? And tell me Alan, after you answer my question about jorunalism’s major purpose, is the NRO’s reaction to the Smith story at all similar to the TNR’s reaction in the Beachamp case?
#7 Not sure how my post can be interpreted as “acting” in any particular way, actually…..
#8 Not trying to prove or disprove your thesis, only add a few more data points.
bq. Or do you concur that journalism, every single bit of it on both sides of the ideological divide, is about controlling the reader’s (or viewer’s) reaction rather than educating him?
But now that you ask, I don’t agree with this at all. While there are certainly (too) many examples of this, it is also certainly hyperbole to assert that “every single bit of it” is driven by such selfish and/or arrogant motivations. There are plenty of good, even great, journalists out there.
Alan,
Who? Name a few.
Seymour Hirsch of the New Yorker is one that comes to mind.
And I’ve always admired Bill Moyers’ work.
I also like Dana Priest of the WaPo.
And there are many more whose names I could find with some time digging around, but they’re definitely out there. A good place to start is the Pulitzer Prize list.
Anyway, I’m still interested in hearing your defense of the strong all-encompassing charge against journalism and journalists.
Alan, you make my point. And sharpen it as well. And in light of your response I would add this to my previous thoughts. Not only is journalsim the business of producing a reaction in a target audience, said target audience enjoys being influenced. In other words the folk that truly enjoy the oft-busted Hirsch, don’t really much care whether what he tells them is accurate, as long as they agree with it. My guess is Thomas Smith at the NRO has been counting on receiving the same sort of treatment that Seymour gets from his biggest fans. Of course not everyone is giving it to him.
All the same I think the observation holds up. Journalism is bascially a collection ideologues telling their core audiences what they want to hear.
The folk attempting to buck that trend, Michael Totten comes to mind, are really sort of the opposite of journalists. And the chances that Totten, or any like him, will ever getting a big time journalism job is, I fear, nil. The truth just isn’t the business’s cup of tea.
And Dana Priest and Bill Moyers and Pulitzer Prize winners Bilal Hussein and Walter Duranty you continue to make my point.
Sure, corvan, whatever you say.
Alan – you did notice “NRO’s response”:http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmI4NzI5ZmRhZGMxZDg5MzUzNWZkZWFhYzExOThjMzU= when their reporter was challenged? Want to make a comparison to TNR’s?
A.L.
Davebo (#7) I don’t usually read NRO…I’m a liberal, remember? I didn’t know about the issue until I followed the link here and did 30 seconds worth of Googling.
And if Joe Klein’s treatment by the oh-so-credible Glenn Greenwald can be remotely compared to – say Hiltzik’s treatment – in the face of Hiltzik’s fraudulent behavior and direct insults to Patterico and to me – I’ll buy dinner.
A.L.
“_And I’ve always admired Bill Moyers’ work.”_
Bill Moyers is your idea of a journalist who seperates idealogy from his work? I think that about says it all concerning why our media is so F’d up.
Bill Moyers suggested conservatives were going to mount a coup if Kerry was elected.
Here’s Moyers _own words_ on the subject:
_”The journalist’s job is not to achieve some mythical state of equilibrium between two opposing opinions out of some misshapen respect — sometimes, alas, reverence — for the prevailing consensus among the powers-that-be. The journalist’s job is to seek out and offer the public the best thinking on an issue, event, or story.”_
“source”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Moyers
I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out Dana Priest’s hunting garb fiasco after Cheney shot one of his friends during a hunting trip, and Hirsch…his list of gaffes is almost too numerous to catalog.
And truly I’m not slamming Alan, the right is certainly guilty of the same thing…but what we are seeing here is a person insisting that the people who tell him what he wants to hear are correct, no matter their inaccuracies, or their record of inaacuracies, or even thier own past statements. We didn’t get this journalist class by accident.
_Bill Moyers suggested conservatives were going to mount a coup if Kerry was elected._
“the right wing”. If Kerry was elected in a narrow election. Since officially Kerry didn’t win a narrow election, there’s no way to tell whether he was right about this.
We can’t get him on saying something that was wrong, only for expressing an opinion. Was it news or was it an editorial?
The Wikipedia link lists two sources, both of them utterly unreliable liars. He must have said something kind of like that for them to start a big fuss about it, but it would take a bigger search to find out what he actually said.
If you believe that all reporters are bad, then you can’t very well trust what some reporters say about other reporters.
Classic J Thomas post. Parse the language to improbably meet his own criteria, impinge any opposing sources as liars, declare the matter definitely closed.
This isnt even a particularly contraversial subject- Bill Moyers _himself_ admits he believes journalism should be a tool for social change.
JT I understand the _you_ dont find the idea that the ‘right wing’ (whoever that may be) launching a coup for control of the nation as being outrageous, but for the sane among us that accusation is outrageous.
For the record the two ‘unreliable liars’ Thomas refers to are those well known hack tabloid writers Ed Koch and George Will. A perfect demonstration on how JT accepts and rejects sources (ie whether they agree with him or not).
JT, you’re kidding me, right?
bq. ..but what we are seeing here is a person insisting that the people who tell him what he wants to hear are correct, no matter their inaccuracies, or their record of inaacuracies, or even thier own past statements.
corvan, if this is in reference to me, please, get a grip. I insisted nothing. You asked for names of what I consider to be good reporters. I supplied them, knowing full well that anyone that I would come up with would meet the kind of response that you (and Mark) have made. Even if the Moyers’ quote is true it doesn’t negate the fact that he and the others have done what I would classify as good journalism. Of course people are biased in their response to news, and certainly there is quite a bit of “hearing what you want” involved. This is an interesting topic worth discussing…but I seriously doubt this is the place to do it…I know from past experience that the discussion will quickly sink into a quagmire if we try to argue these points or even attempt to define what “Good Journalism” is. Hey, don’t get me wrong…everyone is entitled to a good rant now and again….I just don’t feel like providing fuel to this particular one. So go at it. I hope you feel better in the morning.
Pardon me if I am interpreting your comments inaccurately.
#19 A.L.
bq. Alan – you did notice NRO’s response when their reporter was challenged? Want to make a comparison to TNR’s?
Yes, I did notice. Comparisons are difficult, in my view, since it seems the situations are not necessarily equivalent (i.e., the underlying truth is hard to verify in each case). But in general is it commendable to admit mistakes? Yes it is. So what? I’m concerned about the a priori problem of inventing stories or passing along unverified propaganda. Apologies don’t make systemic corruption or malfeasance go poof.
The guy with the body in his trunk is far more likely to quickly agree with the officer that he ran a red light before raising further suspicion, you know.
A.L., thought you might be interested in “this take”:http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/02/nro/index.html on the NRO apology:
UPDATE II: Apologists for National Review are claiming that its online editor, Kathryn Jean Lopez, acted properly by quickly and clearly disclosing the falsehoods. But additional facts prove that this is clearly untrue.
Two highly experienced reporters stationed in Lebanon — Mitchell Prothero and Chris Allbritton (both of whom are cited by Tom Edsall in debunking Smith’s claims) — sent emails to Lopez six weeks ago, which she simply did not answer. I communicated today with Prothero, currently in Beirut, who says that in his email to Lopez, he “was pretty blunt about how [Smith] was reporting things that were not accurate” and raised concerns about Smith’s obvious “unprofessionalism.” According to Prothero, Allbritton sent a similar e-mail. Neither Lopez nor anyone from National Review ever contacted Prothero nor, to his knowledge, Allbritton. (Lopez has failed to respond to an email asking her to confirm this and/or comment on it).
Instead, NR allowed the stories to sit uncorrected and unremarked upon for the last six weeks, and dumped ambiguous non-retractions late Friday afternoon only once a reporter began calling around to ask about the brewing scandal. Such foot-dragging behavior in the face of outright fabrications published by their magazine is the opposite of a forthright and honest retraction. As Prothero said:
I assume the post from the NRO was a preemptive strike because Edsall called them but I have not spoken with him on that and he’d have to speak to that. . . .
What’s funny is that the Beirut press corps and myself would have accepted a correction or retraction but by ignoring reality: I mean did the editor of NRO not notice the lack of war in Lebanon that day? Half the posts don’t pass even the weakest of sniff tests for anyone with even the slightest foreign reporting experience.
Prothero communicated these concerns to Lopez six weeks ago, yet she disclosed nothing until late Friday afternoon, when it seemed she had no choice. Andrew Sullivan, who also communicated with Prothero today, has more on this obviously damning aspect of the NR fabrications.
Alan,
No, your defensiveness and desperate embrace of a narrative disproved by facts…Moyers, Priest or Hirsch as unbiased or even paritcularly truthful simply illustrates my point. I don’t really need to get a grip. I’m not upset. And I appreciate your responses. You make my case more eloquesntly than I ever could. Not only in your site of Hirsch and Moyers et al, but in your reliance on Andrew Sullivan as well. Also would the Mitchell Prothero you site happen to be the Mithcell Porthero who authored “Killing a Nation one Airstrike at a Time,” in Salon as regards to the Irsaeli-Hebollah War. And who reports at a handy site called “From Occupied Palestine?”
And would Albritton be the same reporter who told Steve Bryant “Reporting is all about trust and I’ve built a trusting relationship with my readers…I hope they would rather read me a biased source who will be on the ground in Iraq, than an unbiased account from some arm chair reporter in a cubicle a half a world away.”
Really Alan, I’m the one that needs to get a grip? You need to be more forthcoming about the reporters you claim give your view points provenance.
All that is in no way an excuse for the NRO. Though they haven’t been as maliciously, dramatically and unapologetically dishonest as TNR they have certianly been dishonest enough, and Smith should be canned. But you seem to revel in a certain amount of dishonesty yourself. Pot calling the kettle and all that, I’m afraid.
_JT, you’re kidding me, right?_
Yes. On another thread people were saying that what we do here is “debate” and not attempt to find the truth. I wanted to try out their approach — develop a form of argument and plug in the details regardless how well they fit. I was surprised how easy it was. Of course, it does nothing toward convince anybody, it only pleases people on the same side who care more about winning than about truth. I lack such people.
_Remind me why I’m willing to engage you in discussion?_
Sometimes I say things that are interesting? Perhaps useful? This wasn’t one of those times, and I doubt I’ll experiment this way very often. I lack the proper audience.
” ..but what we are seeing here is a person insisting that the people who tell him what he wants to hear are correct, no matter their inaccuracies, or their record of inaacuracies, or even thier own past statements.”
_corvan, if this is in reference to me, please, get a grip._
He was obviously talking about Cheney.
bq.Really Alan, I’m the one that needs to get a grip? You need to be more forthcoming about the reporters you claim give your view points provenance.
bq. But you seem to revel in a certain amount of dishonesty yourself.
corvan, I really can’t see how such a broad indictment of my views can be made based on what I’ve written here. I am by no means trying to argue that my viewpoint is entirely or even largely shaped by my reading of these journalist’s work. As I said, these reporters have done good work. Have they also done bad work or biased work? Could be. Still, the second possibilities don’t negate the first.
Perhaps it is you who are illustrating what bias-driven opinions really look like, no?
Returning to #19 A.L.:
bq. Alan – you did notice NRO’s response when their reporter was challenged? Want to make a comparison to TNR’s?
Here’s the response linked to in the above comment:
bq. Friday, November 30, 2007
bq. EDITOR’S NOTE [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Long story short: Questions have been raised about some reporting in NRO’s “The Tank,” which W. Thomas Smith Jr. addresses here.
bq. Bottom line: NRO strives to bring you reliable analysis and reporting — whether in presenting articles, essays, or blog posts. Smith did commendable work in Lebanon earlier this year, as he does from S.C. where he is based, as he has done from Iraq, where he has been twice. But rereading some of the posts (see “The Tank” for more detail) and after doing a thorough investigation of some of the points made in some of those posts, I’ve come to the conclusion that NRO should have provided readers with more context and caveats in some posts from Lebanon this fall. And so I apologize to you, our readers.
bq. I thank Smith for his good, brave work. He’s a smart, reliable reporter with a great patriotic spirit and sense of service. We owe him and our readers better — we should have gotten you more context and information before a post or two went live. It’s understandable how it happened — the nature of blogging being what it is — but given what an underreported tinderbox we’re talking about, especially, we owed you more. We weren’t blogging about Dancing with the Stars there.
bq. So I’m grateful to the reporter who contacted Smith with questions. He brought them to my attention. We did due diligence. We’ve reported this back to him. And now we’re reporting back to you.
And here’s a more recent one from K Lo:
bq. Sunday, December 02, 2007
bq. What This is Not [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
A few additional words on what the situation with the Smith Lebanon reporting is and what it isn’t: It isn’t a case of fabrication, as some of Smith’s accusers have alleged. With regard to the two posts in question, it is my belief, based on an investigation in which NRO discussed the matter with three independent sources who live and work in Lebanon (as well as other experts in the area), that Smith was probably either spun by his sources or confused about what he saw.
bq. That’s why I wrote, in my first editor’s note on the subject, that we “should have provided readers with more context and caveats†– the context that Smith was operating in an uncertain environment where he couldn’t always be sure of what he was witnessing, and the caveats that he filled in the gaps by talking to sources within the Cedar Revolution movement and the Lebanese national-security apparatus, whose claims obviously should have been been treated with the same degree of skepticism as those of anyone with an agenda to advance.
bq. As one of our sources put it: “The Arab tendency to lie and exaggerate about enemies is alive and well among pro-American Lebanese Christians as much as it is with the likes of Hamas.†While Smith vouches for his sources, we cannot independently verify what they told him. That’s why we’re revisiting the posts in question and warning readers to take them with a grain of salt.
bq. As editor, my position is mistakes are mistakes and they’re all bad. But because of what I’m reading in other blogs, I feel the need to add: The Smith matter is not the Scott Thomas Beauchamp episode. For one thing, Beauchamp himself falsified the details of his story — claiming that he witnessed things in Iraq that he later claimed happened in Kuwait, etc. If Smith was too trusting of his sources, that is a journalistic faux pas of an entirely different sort. It does not, contrary to some bloggers’ claims, make him a fabulist.
1) To me, these explanations are about the same, or even worse, than those of TNR and Foer, which you have spent a lot of time attacking and parsing as an alleged example of “bias”.
2) An additional interesting point is how Lopez characterizes these sources. “The Arab tendency to lie and exaggerate about enemies is alive and well among pro-American Lebanese Christians as much as it is with the likes of Hamas.”
Wow. Faux Pas indeed.
Still want to make comparisons? This could be fun.
Alan:
Of course they are, to you, because they have to be.
This is perfect Clinton Era morality. First you allege that your critics are a right wing conspiracy, which is supposed to be a complete answer to their criticism and an absolute argument-ender. This is the tack Foer has consistently taken (“our magazine has been subject to accusations“) and it is intended to shut everybody up. Certainly TNR readers are not expected to demand any more explanation than that.
When people refuse to shut up, even after the VRWC trebuchet has been wheeled out and fired five or six times, you start accusing other people of doing the same thing you did, because the first thing they teach you at journalism school is that two wrongs make a right.
What is depressing is how completely so-called liberals have succumbed to this so-called logic, which goes to show you that so-called liberalism is dead, dead, dead. TNR was one of its last citadels.
And yes, I blame the Clintons, who aren’t liberals and never were. Please note that I am blaming the Clintons. For those of you who answer all criticism of the Clintons by pointing out that it is criticism of the Clintons, then this is your cue to say “There you go blaming the Clintons!” because I am absolutely blaming the Clintons.
Alan, isn’t it obvious even to you that you are misquoting KLO? You ascribe to her a quote when she is quoting a source.
Glen, you’re way off base here.
bq. First you allege that your critics are a right wing conspiracy, which is supposed to be a complete answer to their criticism and an absolute argument-ender.
bq. This is the tack Foer has consistently taken (“our magazine has been subject to accusations”) and it is intended to shut everybody up.
That’s ridiculous. The people who are claiming…
bq. That it paints a picture of a media establishment that made up its mind about the war years ago, and has decided continually ignore and downplay the positive, yet focus heavily on the negative shows exactly what their intended goal has been. To undermine the war effort, even at the cost of their credibility.
…are simply being called out for either insinuating or claiming outright (as Gabriel does here, from the other TNR thread) that the “media” is trying to “undermine the war effort”. Its a ridiculous and completely unsubstantiated fabrication that, if anything, is intended to do exactly what you claim “we” or TNR et al. are trying to do…shut down the debate or silence critics by impugning someone’s patriotism, loyalty or love of America.
If those Liberal Journalists and the MSM really wanted to “undermine the war effort”, I can imagine a thousand more effective and direct ways than those you accuse Foer or TNR of using.
Fellas leave Alan alone and let him work. He’s the best argument and illustration my position has.
corvan, I guess you don’t realize that this constantly repeated “you’re illustrating my point for me” canard is the blogosphere equivalent of “I know you are but what am I”….an effort to essentially absolve yourself from having to actually construct an argument of your own. Oh well, I knew what I was getting into with you anyway…
Alan,
Don’t be cross. Go back and read your posts. You have illustrated my point perfectly and proven yourself to be bullet proof to facts that you do not deem acceptable to your world view, truth be damned. I’m not the one that brought Hirsch and Prothero and Andrew Sullivan up as examples of what journalism should be. Nor am I the one that keeps trying to change the topic of the post to the NRO as if that absolves the TNR of blame. Nor am I the one dense enough to pretend that Joe Klien is a member of the vast right wing conspiracy and that Time magazine is part of the corporate Republican media. Nor am I the one telling Gabriel that the media has never tried to under mine the war effort while siting Porthero, Albritton and Hirsch. It is all too rich for words and can only leave one hoping that you are not a product of the American school system.
Alan –
I certainly agree that people can lie and practice bad journalism without being unpatriotic.
The question is why this material was ever published in the first place, why TNR has chosen to respond to criticism the way it has (including firing one of their staff, who was subsequently ridiculed as a homosexual internet weirdo on “Huffington Post”:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/the-weekly-standard_b_58977.html – an odd coincidence), and why people who claim to care nothing about TNR or about Beauchamp are so hotly defending them.
bq. I’m not the one that brought Hirsch and Prothero and Andrew Sullivan up as examples of what journalism should be.
corvan, neither did I. I mentioned Hirsch and Moyers and Priest, but as examples of those who have done good journalism. Surely you can see the distinction.
bq. Nor am I the one dense enough to pretend that…
bq. You have illustrated my point perfectly and proven yourself to be bullet proof to facts that you do not deem acceptable to your world view, truth be damned.
bq. It is all too rich for words and can only leave one hoping that you are not a product of the American school system.
bq. Don’t be cross.
I’m not cross, believe me. Far from it. Rather, I’m delighted to have engaged you in such an interesting conversation, corvan. Thanks.
No thank you…you did my postion a much greater service than you did your own. Feel free to help out any time.
_The question is why this material was ever published in the first place_ ….
In a system that isn’t supposed to be censored, people are supposed to censor themselves. They messed up and didn’t do that well enough. They’ll suffer the consequences.