Free Republic

It’s been another week without word from the New Republic on the status of its "investigation" into the columns of TNR Baghdad Diarist Scott Thomas Beauchamp. "The editors" have not spoken on the matter since their (August 10 update). At that time "the editors" spoke grandly of their "commitment to the truth" and their efforts to resolve the "legitimate concerns about journalistic accuracy" that had been raised by the critics of Beauchamp's TNR Baghdad Diarist columns. They also said they took those concerns "extremely seriously." Ten weeks later, however, their promises have proved empty. "The editors" think they can stonewall...

It's hard to believe that, not so long ago, neoconservative foreign policy thinking overflowed with ideas and idealism. The descent has been steep, and nowhere is it more apparent than in the pages of The Weekly Standard--particularly in William Kristol's editorials, which have come to consist of stubborn denials of any bad news, diatribes about internal enemies, and harangues against the cowardice of Republican dissenters. Kristol's sensibility is perfectly summed up in one representative passage from a recent issue. The topic was The New Republic's decision to publish an essay by Scott Beauchamp, an American soldier serving in Iraq, detailing...

When Pajamas Media heard the authenticity questions surrounding the “Baghdad Diarist” articles by Scott Thomas Beauchamp in The New Republic, we asked our Washington Editor Richard Miniter to look into how the respected opinion magazine could once again be the locus of such a scandal. Miniter spoke with several people involved in the extraordinary story, including the whistle-blower and a German woman who was Beauchamp’s fiancée until just before he married, of all people, Miniter discovered, a fact-checker at The New Republic. That fiancée said of her former boyfriend, the soldier/reporter: “He hates the army. The only reason he joined...

It's Not Just Scott Beauchamp By Randall Hoven "Matt Drudge's role in the Monica Lewinski scandal] strikes me as a new and graphic power of the Internet to influence mainstream journalism. And I suspect that over the next couple of years that impact will grow to the point where it will damage journalism's ability to do its job professionally, to check out information before publication, to be mindful of the necessity to publish and broadcast reliable, substantiated information." -- Marvin Kalb in 1998 Scott Beauchamp was the last straw. I realized that I need a scorecard to keep track of...

The New Republic magazine recently ran into big trouble for publishing a first-person account of military savagery in Iraq. The author, Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, used the pseudonym "Scott Thomas" to write of the debasement of war that he claims he saw in the cauldron of Iraq. But it was soon discovered that one of the gruesome "wartime" incidents the private described -- the author, desensitized by war, mocking a disfigured woman -- took place in Kuwait before his unit actually went into Iraq. And when, post-publication, The New Republic rechecked Beauchamp's other suspicious anecdotes and assured its readers they...

It looks like The New Republic’s series of stories by a soldier serving in Iraq may be bogus. Since early this year, the magazine has been running articles alleging sadism and cruelty is common among U.S. troops stationed in the country. The stories were all written under a pseudonym, so it has been difficult to try to track down the events described. Recently, though, Pvt. Scott Beauchamp, of the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, has come forward as the author. Given this lead, Army investigators have been unable to confirm that any of the incidents mentioned in his “diary” actually took...

Chances are good that more Americans have heard of Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp than Cpl. Zebulon "Zeb" Webberley. Both are serving in Iraq. -snip- Whether his accounts are true -- or a little bit true -- or not has been a subject of debate, primarily among journalists and the U.S. Army. TNR stands by Beauchamp's claims; the Army says the writer-soldier's accounts are false. -snip- First, a few words from Webberley: "Sir, I will die for this post. I have told all of my Marines that no matter what happens out here, we will hold this position at all costs."...

If anyone ever starts a museum of horrible explanations, the one-liner by Newsweek's Evan Thomas about his magazine's dubious reporting on the Duke non-rape case— "The narrative was right but the facts were wrong" —is destined to become a popular exhibit, right up there with "we had to destroy the village to save it." What Mr. Thomas seems to mean is that the newsroom view of the lacrosse players as privileged, sexist, and arrogant white male jocks was the correct angle on the story. It wasn't. According to Duke's female lacrosse team and other women on campus, the male players...

For several weeks now, questions have been raised about Scott Beauchamp's Baghdad Diarist "Shock Troops." While many of these questions have been formulated by people with ideological agendas, we recognize that there are legitimate concerns about journalistic accuracy. We at The New Republic take these concerns extremely seriously. This is why we have sought to re-report the story, in the process speaking with five soldiers in Beauchamp's company who substantiate the events described in Beauchamp's essay. Indeed, we continue to investigate the anecdotes recounted in the Baghdad Diarist. Unfortunately, our efforts have been severely hampered by the U.S. Army. Although...

As many of us know, the "Baghdad Diarist" and the details of the "activities" of his American Army buddies have been, by his own recants, shown to be fictitious. However, The New Republic who published those "stories" continues to operate under assumptions borne of arrogance and ignorance.... Their latest "update" on Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp ended like this.... Here's what we know: On July 26, Beauchamp told us that he signed several statements under what he described as pressure from the Army. He told us that these statements did not contradict his articles. Moreover, on the same day he signed...

For a month, the veracity of the New Republic's Scott Beauchamp, the Army private who has been sending dispatches from the front in Iraq, has been in dispute. His latest "Baghdad Diarist" (July 13) recounted three incidents of American soldiers engaged in acts of unusual callousness. The stories were meant to shock. And they did. In one, the driver of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle amused himself by running over dogs, crippling and killing them. In another, a fellow soldier wore on his head and under his helmet a part of a child's skull dug from a grave. The most ghastly...

As yet another news outlet finds itself embroiled in a fabrication controversy, media ethics analysts are encouraging the industry to reevaluate its approach toward ethical standards. But they are also encouraging news consumers to not consider the scandals as representative of widespread credibility problems. The New Republic (TNR) magazine has come under fire from conservative media in recent weeks over its "Baghdad Diarist," an Army private hired by the magazine to write a column about his experiences in Iraq. Analysts have accused Pvt. Scott Beauchamp of lying about his experiences and exaggerating three specific stories in an attempt to shed...

For several weeks now, questions have been raised about Scott Beauchamp's Baghdad Diarist "Shock Troops." While many of these questions have been formulated by people with ideological agendas, we recognize that there are legitimate concerns about journalistic accuracy. We at The New Republic take these concerns extremely seriously. This is why we have sought to re-report the story, in the process speaking with five soldiers in Beauchamp's company who substantiate the events described in Beauchamp's essay. Indeed, we continue to investigate the anecdotes recounted in the Baghdad Diarist. Unfortunately, our efforts have been severely hampered by the U.S. Army. Although...

<p>For a month, the veracity of The New Republic's Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the Army private who has been sending dispatches from the front in Iraq, has been in dispute. His latest "Baghdad Diarist" (July 13) recounted three incidents of American soldiers engaged in acts of unusual callousness. The stories were meant to shock. And they did.</p>

In January 1944, The New York Times Magazine published an essay by Arthur Koestler entitled “On Disbelieving Atrocities.” It conveyed his frustration at trying to communicate what he and others had seen taking place in Nazi-dominated Europe. The events that came to be known as the Holocaust were not unknown by this time, but they were not widely accepted as true. “I have been lecturing now for three years to the troops and their attitude is the same,” he wrote. “They don't believe in concentration camps, they don't believe in the starved children of Greece, in the shot hostages of...

<p>WASHINGTON -- For a month, the veracity of The New Republic's Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the Army private who has been sending dispatches from the front in Iraq, has been in dispute. His latest "Baghdad Diarist" (July 13) recounted three incidents of American soldiers engaged in acts of unusual callousness. The stories were meant to shock. And they did.</p>

Well, not so much a retraction because he says he didn't really say what TNR claims he did -- fully "confirming" a Bradley could do what Scott Beauchamp says it did. Confederate Yankee actually tracked down TNR's expert on this and asked him what the Bradley could do -- and, even more importantly, what exactly TNR asked him before reporting he'd fully corroborated the account. '...[T]he TNR researcher did not provide the text of "Shock Troops" for Mr. Coffery [the Bradley expert] to review, and only asked the vaguest possible questions. It seems rather obvious that this was not an...

NEW YORK - 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. Three articles by the soldier have run since January in The New Republic, a liberal magazine with a small circulation owned by Canadian...

NEW YORK - 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. Three articles by the soldier have run since January in The New Republic, a liberal magazine with a small circulation owned by Canadian...

In their latest demonstration of how much they love the troops, liberals have produced yet another anti-war hoax.