I’d been hearing from friends at TNR that they’d essentially confirmed their controversial correspondent’s stories last week, but were crossing T’s and dotting I’s before issuing an official statement. But since the controversy itself has raised barriers to further investigation, they’ve wrapped it up and posted their findings. Almost everything checks out, though I see The Corner drawing attention to the one factual inaccuracy they identified without noting that the week of angry howling from the hawk blogosphere has otherwise been pretty well rebutted. But that’s not fair either: Raising questions about doubtful-seeming reporting is an important function of distributed media, even if it ultimately checks out. I’m guessing we’re about to enter the less-productive phase in which a cluster of holdouts, having determined the stories must be lies, trumpet this as evidence of the great lengths to which TNR will go to protect “fabrications.”
“Scott Thomas” Redux
August 2nd, 2007 · 2 Comments
Tags: Journalism & the Media
2 responses so far ↓
1 Barry // Aug 3, 2007 at 10:57 am
Julian, if these guys were actually into raising doubts where justified, they wouldn’t be die-hard Bush supporters.
2 Barry // Aug 3, 2007 at 11:05 am
Adding on (I pushed ‘post’ too quickly) –
These are guys who are straining at gnats while swallowing camels. They’ve seen four years of promises of gold being followed by deliveries of horror. Instead of going after the god-awful big lies (huge lies) that hit them every day, they put on green eyeshades, and play fact-checker on a minor article. And their responses were, in many cases, clearly lies. Soldiers mocking people? Soldiers running over dogs with armored vehicles, despite the rules? Soldiers capable of hitting a dog with that armored vehicle which they’ve spent hundreds of hours driving?