The attempts by the author of this article (and its subjects) to drum up a pity party for Elspeth Reeve, her husband Sgt. Dork and/or Franklin Foer are pathetic. Once again, "conservative bloggers" are blamed for calling attention to the fact that TNR failed miserably in every aspect of this case.
It is the basic obligation of a magazine that publishes an article that purports to be non-fiction to properly investigate the factual allegations therein before publication. That is called "fact-checking." It is not the obligation of others "to prove them wrong;" the burden of proof is on the author and the magazine that chooses to put its credibility on the line when it selects an article for national publication.
One would think that a magazine that has been infamously burned by a Stephen Glass might actually be concerned about performing such rudimentary tasks.
It apparently did not occur to the genii at TNR that having the articles fact-checked by the wife/girlfriend of the author might not be the best methodology.
When this was pointed out to Foer months ago, he lied and stonewalled.
Several months ago, Foer was forced to concede that even if the incident concerning the disfigured female contractor did occur, it occurred before the author's unit was deployed to Iraq. That fact that this undercut the entire point of the piece - that the Iraq war "dehumanized" the soldiers - was dismissed by Foer as a mere "error."
In Foer's pathetic "retraction," he also admits that the only other person who they could find to verify that aspect of the story had been washed out of the service for mental problems. But of course, everyone else had an agenda and it was the Army's fault and a big conspiracy, blah blah...
Foer also admitted that his idea of "fact checking" was to provide the stories to another journalist who'd been to Iraq who, despite having no personal knowledge of any of the facts claimed therein, thought that "they could be true." To Foer, that was apparently sufficient.
The bottom line is that Foer, The New Republic and this other "journalist" wanted to believe the stories were true because the stories were in line with their prejudices. As such, they were happy to ignore their own procedures and standards and, when called out, attacked their critics as "thugs" and "idealogues."
But all is not lost. I'm sure that Foer and Elspeth Reeve can always find a job at CNN.
The attempts by the author of this article (and its subjects) to drum up a pity party for Elspeth Reeve, her husband Sgt. Dork and/or Franklin Foer are pathetic. Once again, "conservative bloggers" are blamed for calling attention to the fact that TNR failed miserably in every aspect of this case.
It is the basic obligation of a magazine that publishes an article that purports to be non-fiction to properly investigate the factual allegations therein before publication. That is called "fact-checking." It is not the obligation of others "to prove them wrong;" the burden of proof is on the author and the magazine that chooses to put its credibility on the line when it selects an article for national publication.
One would think that a magazine that has been infamously burned by a Stephen Glass might actually be concerned about performing such rudimentary tasks.
It apparently did not occur to the genii at TNR that having the articles fact-checked by the wife/girlfriend of the author might not be the best methodology.
When this was pointed out to Foer months ago, he lied and stonewalled.
Several months ago, Foer was forced to concede that even if the incident concerning the disfigured female contractor did occur, it occurred before the author's unit was deployed to Iraq. That fact that this undercut the entire point of the piece - that the Iraq war "dehumanized" the soldiers - was dismissed by Foer as a mere "error."
In Foer's pathetic "retraction," he also admits that the only other person who they could find to verify that aspect of the story had been washed out of the service for mental problems. But of course, everyone else had an agenda and it was the Army's fault and a big conspiracy, blah blah...
Foer also admitted that his idea of "fact checking" was to provide the stories to another journalist who'd been to Iraq who, despite having no personal knowledge of any of the facts claimed therein, thought that "they could be true." To Foer, that was apparently sufficient.
The bottom line is that Foer, The New Republic and this other "journalist" wanted to believe the stories were true because the stories were in line with their prejudices. As such, they were happy to ignore their own procedures and standards and, when called out, attacked their critics as "thugs" and "idealogues."
But all is not lost. I'm sure that Foer and Elspeth Reeve can always find a job at CNN.