Aug
9
AP Picks Up on Beauchamp Story
by Stephan Tawney
H/t Bryan. The Associated Press picked up on the affair today. What’s more important, in my opinion, is what the Associated Press says. The US Army has also emailed them saying the entire story by Beauchamp is false, and their investigation has concluded.
A magazine gets a hot story straight from a soldier in Iraq and publishes his writing, complete with gory details, under a pseudonym. The stories are chilling: An Iraqi boy befriends American troops and later has his tongue cut out by insurgents. Soldiers mock a disfigured woman sitting near them in a dining hall. As a diversion, soldiers run over dogs with armored personnel carriers. Compelling stuff, and, according to the Army, not true….
The Army said this week it had concluded an investigation of Beauchamp’s claims and found them false.
“During that investigation, all the soldiers from his unit refuted all claims that Pvt. Beauchamp made in his blog,” Sgt. 1st Class Robert Timmons, a spokesman in Baghdad for the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, based at Fort Riley, Kan., said in an e-mail interview.
The Weekly Standard said Beauchamp signed a sworn statement admitting all three articles were exaggerations and falsehoods.
Calls to Editor Franklin Foer at The New Republic in Washington were not returned, but the magazine said on its Web site that it has conducted its own investigation and stands by Beauchamp’s work…
After the pieces were questioned, the magazine said it extensively re-reported his account, contacting dozens of people, including former soldiers, forensic experts, war reporters and Army public affairs officers.
The New Republic said it also spoke to five members of Beauchamp’s company, all of whom corroborated Beauchamp’s anecdotes but requested anonymity.
Yes. It’s amazing how soldiers and spokesman who refute the claim are willing to give their full name to the statements they make. Yet, TNR seems to only have five anonymous “sources”.
Bob Steele, the Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values at The Poynter Institute school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla., said granting a writer anonymity “raises questions about authenticity and legitimacy.” …
Steele said he was troubled by the fact that the magazine did not catch the scene-shifting from Kuwait to Iraq of the incident Beauchamp described involving the disfigured woman.
“If they were doing any kind of fact-checking, with multiple sources, that error _ or potential deception _ would have emerged,” Steele said.
Oh, and for those of the blogosphere who said the relationship to the employee isn’t significant:
He added that he was also troubled by the relationship between Beauchamp and Reeve, his wife, who works at The New Republic. “It raises the possible specter of competing loyalties, which could undermine the credibility of the journalism,” he said.
Even a staff writer for the paper Elspeth had her worked published in, in 2003, said TNR didn’t do its job:
Paul McLeary, a staff writer for Columbia Journalism Review who has written about the matter, said The New Republic failed to do some basic journalistic legwork, such as calling the public affairs officer for Beauchamp’s unit.
“There is a degree of trust and faith editors have to put in their writers,” McLeary said. “If you’re on a tight deadline, you have to go as far as you can. The New Republic definitely didn’t go as far as it could in terms of checking out its stories.”
Well, as soon as TNR gets back from its vacation, I’m sure they’ll be willing to explain.
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2 Responses to “AP Picks Up on Beauchamp Story”
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EVERYTHING from “Shock Troops” is a UCMJ violation under 934. ART. 134. GENERAL ARTICLE. Why is Franklin Foer shielding war criminals, if he really believes the story as strongly as he says?
If you were submitting articles that were generally okay and then dropped a story on your editor where you participated in crimes and then your editor confirmed with your conspirators that, indeed, they helped you commit crimes, wouldn’t the editor be morally obligated to forward the evidence to the proper authorities? Wouldn’t it be silly of an editor to demand the authorities fork over their investigative documents to him so reporters could write another story about the investigation?
That is the latest that Mr. Foer is demanding.
BTW, the BAE Bradley Expert that TNR interviewed is Mr. Doug Coffey and he holds a differing opinion from what TNR “re-reported” in their ‘investigation’.
The fairbanksing gets deeper and deeper.
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