The New York Times editorial writers should resign en masse. They're an embarrassment to the entire principle of honest analysis and clear thinking. Just over a month ago, the Times published a lengthy and morally bankrupt editorial urging the United States to pull all of its troops out of Iraq while acknowledging that such a […]
There were a couple of interesting posts on the subject of journalism this past week. The first one was a guest post by William Katz, a former New York Times Magazine editor and longtime talent coordinator for the "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson. The whole thing is worth reading, but I wanted to highlight this […]
I must confess that I just don't get it. New York Times prima donna Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse refused to appear on a panel on the Supreme Court put on by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication because C-SPAN was going to tape it. According to people who were there, Greenhouse […]
Bob Owens over at Confederate Yankee managed to track down one of the sources The New Republic used to "confirm" one of the facts in their since-discredited "Shock Troops" piece -- and it doesn't reflect well on that magazine's vaunted fact-checking. Specifically, Owens tracked down the spokesman for the manufacturerer of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle […]
I don't remember which of my college reporting classes it was, but one professor had a policy which allowed you to throw out a grade for a single assignment at the end of term, if you had never misspelled anyone's name in any assignment for the entire quarter. Needless to say, very few grades were […]
It's all over except for the self-flagellation to come from The New Republic editor Franklin Foer. Over the past couple of days, Bob Owens has posted a couple (here and here) of e-mail exchanges that would appear to cast doubt not only on Scott Thomas Beauchamp's truthtelling ability, but that of Foer himself. Maj. Renee […]
Well, it didn't take long. Less than a week after taking over The Wall Street Journal, Austrailian media mogul Rupert Murdoch has shrunk the paper's page size in an effort to cut costs. The move also has the side effect of reducing the amount of space available for quality journalism. Of course, I may have […]
Just a couple days after The New Republic editor Franklin Foer proclaimed that Scott Thomas Beauchamp's "reporting" had been verified (except for the fact that he was a little jerk before he got to Iraq -- not that the war made him one), we have additional confirmation that Foer is wrong and Beauchamp is a […]
The New Republic has another fabulist on its hands. After a thorough investigation that lasted nearly a week the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division has concluded that the allegations made by Private Thomas Scott Beauchamp, the "Baghdad Diarist", have been "refuted by members of his platoon and proven to be false" [emphasis […]
UPDATED WITH LINKS The New Republic has re-fact-checked it's previously fact-checked reports and come to the conclusion that they were mostly right. Beauchamp's essay consisted of three discrete anecdotes. In the first, Beauchamp recounted how he and a fellow soldier mocked a disfigured woman seated near them in a dining hall. Three soldiers with whom […]