I detailed the paradox of the New Republic's shoddy journalism alongside its respectable reputation in an earlier post. Its current fact-checking department, woefully inadequate even after so many earlier scandals, gives indication why the magazine finds itself in an embarrassing situation in the Scott Thomas Beauchamp imbroglio. Beauchamp, if you haven't been following this story, authored a series of pieces behind, at least from the perspective of some of the people pushing this story, enemy lines in Iraq.
I don't know if Beauchamp lied in all the contested specifics of his articles and posts. The peer pressure, and above pressure, exerts a heavy weight in the military, so second-hand reports of fellow soldiers disputing his account isn't proof enough for me. Much of what he alleges, at least to one who served in the military (albeit stateside and as a reservist), also doesn't seem so far-fetched--at least to anyone who views American servicemen as fallible human beings and not superheroes or movie characters. So I don't know if a Bradley deliberately ran over a dog or if soldiers ridiculed a disfigured woman. And, with tens of thousands of servicemen in Iraq, I don't think any of Beauchamp's anecdotes, if true, is terribly consequential. But I do know the New Republic and its "Baghdad Diarist" have been deceptive.
The magazine neglected to tell anyone that the army private at the center of this controversy is married to one of the magazine's fact checkers. Had a company, or government department, done similarly, the New Republic certainly would have charged "stonewalling." But this is the press, and they play by rules that differ from the rules they lay down for others. Take TNR editor Franklin Foer's refusal to take calls from adversarial bloggers. What's there to hide, Frank? How would you treat a guy in print who hid from your reporters? And how about the smearing of the New Republic employee who had the guts to hold his employers up to the same standard that they hold everyone else up to?
A second-generation leftist has gone after this whistle blower as, as, as....you're not going to believe this....a HOMOSEXUAL. Omigod, this totally vindicates the New Republic, right? Seriously, what does the fact that this guy is gay have to do with any of this? What a completely lame way of avoiding the issue. Though the New Republic itself did not smear this whistleblower, they did fire him and send him a silencing cease-and-desist letter. And then there is the "Baghdad Diarist" himself, who portrays himself as a good guy turned callous and an idealistic enlistee turned dejected because of the war. Yet, the other woman he was recently engaged to, contends that Scott Thomas Beauchamp joined the army--which, if true, would be absolutely crazy--for the same reason he married the New Republic fact-checker: To bolster his writing career. "He hates the army," she told Pajamas Media "The only reason he joined was because he wanted to have more experience to write about.”
Stephen Glass? A Soviet Utopia? A Communist Spy as Editor? Ruth Shallit? A pseudononymous television critic praising his better known self? The Baghdad Diarist? Never has a publication enjoyed such a high reputation while practicing such shoddy journalism.
Well, no other publication except possibly the NYT. I wonder which one has a worse record? In terms of causing actual real world suffering it is the Times hands down.
