"The New Republic" Voices Doubt Over "Diary" From Iraq: Can no longer stand by articles

Source: New York Times

By PATRICIA COHEN
Published: December 4, 2007

After months of accusations that reports written in The New Republic by “The Baghdad Diarist,” an American Army private, about the cruelty of ordinary soldiers in Iraq were false, the magazine says that as a result of its own investigation it can no longer stand by the articles. At the same time, National Review, one of the conservative magazines that strongly attacked The New Republic over the diarist articles, finds itself fending off accusations that accounts of armed Hezbollah gunmen in Lebanon reported in its blog in September were erroneous.

The two episodes have allowed political bloggers on the right and the left to claim the moral high ground in the past few days while letting the arrows fly. Each side has questioned the other’s patriotism, honesty and ethics while arguing over who had made the biggest mistake.

The New Republic’s troubles started in July, when it published an article by an anonymous soldier. The columns, titled “The Baghdad Diarist,” were written by Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an Army private who made claims of casually cruel behavior by the men in his unit. These included one of a soldier who gleefully ran over dogs with a Bradley fighting vehicle and another of a soldier who jokingly put the shattered remnants of a child’s skull on his head.

The accounts were almost immediately challenged by conservatives. An Army investigation concluded in August that Private Beauchamp’s reports were false, but aside from acknowledging one factual mistake, the soldier continued to insist they were true. The New Republic promised a full investigation.

Over last weekend, the magazine posted on its Web site a nearly 7,000-word column to run in the Dec. 10 issue by Franklin Foer, the editor. It concluded: “In light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.”...

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/us/04republic.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Them's weasel words. I suspect the story is substantially true.

why did Scott Thomas Beauchamp have to resort to lying?

Thanks for making it hard for us progressives to bring to account the ACTUAL atrocities that do happen, Mr. Beauchamp. Thanks a lot! :sarcasm:

Source: USA Today

In a very, very long article that has been posted online, The New Republic magazine reports today it cannot stand by the "Baghdad Diarist" pieces it published earlier this year, which were written by a soldier in Iraq who made several grisly and controversial claims about his experiences.

The New Republic editor Franklin Foer's article was published Monday. It extensively outlines the process by which the magazine re-reported three dispatches written by Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp earlier this year. Here's a previous post on those dispatches.

The articles stirred up a fact-checking drive in the conservative blogosphere and led to an eventual Army investigation that concluded Beauchamp's claims were false.

"When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories," the editor wrote. "Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them."



Read more: http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/12/new-republic-wo.html

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This is BIG MEDICINE in the RW news world.

anti-war or with any kind of political agenda.

Stephen Glass worked for TNR too. You'd think that once burned they'd be twice shy....

Some milblogger claimed Hezbollah was invading some neighborhood in Beirut -- it was a total fabrication. TNR, for which I am not a big fan of, handled the Beafcamp situation as well as they could once the doubts were brought up (they screwed up having Beaufcamp's WIFE edit his stuff), and appear to have been honest about how they viewed it throughout.

Meanwhile, the NRO editor sat on e-mails for WEEKS which told her that the stories posted in The Tank were false. NRO is looking a lot worse than TNR at the moment.

It kinda surprised me.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=259x7869

i'd sooner believe the soldier.