Asymmetrical Information

Some of these things do need fairly special experience to notice. Exactly how fast do Bradleys go? How tight are the helmets?

But some things don't need anything but a little skepticism, something that TNR, of all magazines, should have for any exceptionally interesting articles. I mean, there was a freaking MOVIE made about how TNR screwed up its fact checking in the 90s. Some of the editors there may have heard about it.

Like, there are IEDs going off every day, and people being killed by roadside bombs, but this guys could drive worse than a drunken maniac with no consequences? Trying to do those stunts in an SUV could cause it to roll, and the passengers would be very pissed. Do the TNR editors really think that people use armoured vehicles as personal equipment that they take by themselves through the streets of Iraqi cities? That a Private has NO supervision?

Then there's the whole "square backed" ammo. If you've ever watched an action movie or CSI, you'll know that bullets are round with pointy tips. Further examination says that some Glocks can make a square indentation, but that's not what the article says. Someone should have fact-checked that, or changed the wording.

Now I'm curious about the whole "square-backed ammo" thing. That hasn't shown up in any of the excerpts I've seen. That happens to be an area where I know a little something...can someone with a subscription fill in the details?

Megan,

Time will tell with regard to what percentage truth and what percentage was contained in Beauchamp's pieces. However, he has a huge internet presence (blogs, My Space, etc.) with many worrying features. For details, there's some very good reporting and detective work at ace.mu.nu.

Here are a few things that should have bothered the TNR people before they staked their reputation on yet another imaginative young person:

1. STB occupied a very lowly position in the military, and seems not to have been given much responsibility in Germany. See for instance his blog, where he complains of janitorial and landscaping duties, which he obviously feels are beneath him.

2. STB harbored literary aspirations and dreamed of returning from Iraq an author. (Combined with point #1, we have obvious temptation to fictionalize, since he would otherwise not have had much material to work with.)

3. Before going to Iraq, STB talked on his blog about how he was against the war, but saw it as an opportunity to gain credibility on defense issues, and as a stairstep to literary success.

3. Also before going to Iraq, he was writing vivid Iraq atrocity fiction on his blog. His style and presentation there are very similar to that in the TNR pieces.

It is possible that the online material I mention is fraudulent. However, if it is genuine, STB and TNR are going to be in very hot water.

I would also recommend the John Barnes piece on Amazon, which he wrote before "Scott Thomas" became known as Scott Thomas Beauchamp. Barnes analyzes the piece, pointing out various features (for instance the affectation of sociopathy) that mark the author as a tough-guy wannabe MFA type, which seems to be pretty much what STB is. The Barnes piece is a must-read. I would also recommend a good look at the various military bloggers (including the commenters at Ace of Spades), who have really been going over the stuff with a fine-tooth comb. There are a lot of dubious statements (like only the Iraqi police carry Glocks) that should have made the TNR people wary of Beauchamp. But his material must have been too good to check...

Rob Lyman:

"Someone reached down and picked a shell casing up off the ground. It was 9mm with a square back. Everything suddenly became clear. The only shell casings that look like that belong to Glocks. And the only people who use Glocks are the Iraqi police."

This was actually one of the first excerpts I saw. And one of the dumbest. Besides the "square backed" thing, a LOT of people in Iraq have Glocks, including US soldiers and a whole lot of civilians (it's apparently the 9mm of choice over there.)

I respect the military bloggers and their genuine anger over Beauchamp's writings -- most of our soliders act with incredible professionalism and rightfully take umbrage at the ones who don't.

Still the affair appears to me to have been completely blown out of proportion. Beauchamp didn't need any lefty anti-war motive to exaggerate details or streamline hearsay into first person anecdotes (assuming that's what he did). Maybe he was just trying to write really exciting stuff. Every writer is faced with that conundrum -- being accurate and being interesting do not always dovetail.

I also think there's a form vs. content issue that may ve contributed to TNR getting caught off guard. Beauchamp wasn't a professional journalist -- he was a diarist. He was supposed to jot down personal thoughts about daily life on the ground, not do any hard reporting.

So if Beauchamp got a detail wrong -- square backs? -- who cared? It was just local color, not real news.

When Beauchamp wrote the stuff that really got him in trouble, you can see how it got past his editors. He writes a little essay about the dehumanizing nature of war. To illustrate he uses some compelling, but sketchy examples. Examples that notably lack details like when, where, and who. The folks at TNR don't treat this as news, because they've already categorized Beauchamp as a local-color guy.

It's stupid all around, but not nefarious.

"Square back" is an odd way of describing the distictive rectangular firing pin impression that Glocks make on a primer. (The impression, BTW, comes mostly from the pressure exerted by the burning powder, and under-powered loads won't leave it). Maybe it's GI slang, I don't know. I sort of suspect a copy editor at work here.

For my part, I've never once used the term "shell casings," preferring to call it "brass" like, well, everyone who knows guns.

i think you let journalists off too easy. the holier than thou journalistic attitude is based on allegedly speaking truth to power. so speaking truth is the predicate. journalists often seem to get confused on this point, thinking their policy goals justify being lax on the truth (wrong facts, right narrative). if you get the facts right, go ahead and try to draw whatever conclusions you want. but without those facts, you've got nothing. (and TNR obviously should have been on the lookout for something like this.)

Just taking note of this controversy for the first time. Must live in a cave. But from what I gather someone in the military is either lying, telling the truth, or mixing lies with truth.

I'm just interested in the guy who said we need some kind of motive for why he'd lie, and there appears to be no motive.

That person shows a pretty clear lack of understand of human behavior. People lie. People lie for attention. It happens every day, and the internet brings it out even more so... for some reason there appears to be a certain percentage of the population that not only likes to tell bold faced lies on but they invent all kinds of stories surrounding their lies as though it were some kind of status symbol. I have no idea why.

I remember overhearing a conversation a co-worker had on his cell phone. He claimed the waiter at dinner gave him directions to a store and when he arrived at the store it was really a porn shop. I've got no idea what he was talking about as I was standing right there and I drove him to the store and it was indeed not a pornshop or anything close to it. It sold shoes hats and other stuff. The strange thing was he so comfortably and freely lied over the phone to someone else even though I was standing right there clearly aware that he was making stuff up.

Why do people lie? Status? To make things interesting? Just because? Whatever the case people do, and I'm certain that there has to be some in the military that fit the same bill as this coworker of mine.

Now, whether or not this guy's story is true, what's the point?

Doesn't the New Republic pay its contributors? I thought that was the difference between that kind of journal and the scholarly kind (e.g. American Journal of Philology) where a contributor receives only a couple of dozen offprints and the right to add a line to his c.v. I've heard that places like the New Republic pay something in the $300-500 range for even a full-sized article by an unknown author, but that would be enough to motivate me if I thought I could knock something off in 5-15 hours that would be accepted.

Let's not forget the explosion of dubious memoirs that we have seen exposed over the past couple years.

>It seems that some people with more military knowlege than the TNR editors think
>they have discovered erroneous details that could be easily checked.

It seems to me that publications that are going to publish stories about military matters might want to have some ex-military folks on hand (or on call) to give articles the once-over. I would certainly expect, Jane, that your publication have some financial expertise on hand to vet articles that you write.

After all, we all make mistakes and while most mistakes of fact are probably completely innocent, they still need to be caught before publication.

I'll bet TNR is MUCh more careful to check articles in their natural areas of expertise, they just slacked off here because it wasn't really serious, just a poke at the war.

What's the over/under on the amount of money Ezra Klein has lost to Nigerian e-mail scammers so far?

I just defended many of Megan's points on Ezra's site but don't cut TNR slack on fact-checking. Not on the details of whether the military equipment is capable of things described, but on the sourcing for claims in the reports.

The more it attracts attention and makes a reader go "Holy Shit!" the more it needs to be questioned. If it's something that will make people angry or upset, source it well. Provide names, times and details. If not in the story, the editors ought to know.

Set up a bit of a straw man there, Megan. There's no need to fact-check inconsequential details, but there is a need to check the big ones, and the accuracy of the general tenor of the piece. It's unlikely that all the malfeasance takes place in just one unit, and that no one else ever heard about it. If calls around fail to turn up any corroborating evidence, a prudent (i.e., still employed) editor would think twice.

If they don't have the expertise or the resources to check the article at least a bit, they should get out of the business. Presumably the publisher will now help Foer with that decision.

But we can't have people holding themselves out as reporting facts when they have no idea whether what they're saying is true or not. Foer bet his job, and if the story doesn't hold up, he should lose it.

Wait a minute ... someone who aspires to become a member of the literary set makes a splash with pseudonymous memoirs that reinforce the exact anti-military, soldiers-are-brutes prejudices of that very group, and Ezra can't see a motive here? Are you kidding me?

Jane I simply cannot believe that if that piece had crossed your desk you would not have raised a carefully arched eyebrow at the messhall portion. I doubt that you have ever been in one and it has been 30 years for me but really.

A guy makes fun of his own side's wounded, in public, and everyone just laughs. No one meets him outside and beats the sh!t out of him for making fun of the woman. No officers or NCOs write him up for his behavior.

You don't have to be in the military to wonder about that. You don't have to know anything special.

You just have to believe that our troops are better than sub-human brutes.

Mr. Foer claims to believe that, for the military at least, such behavior is a small prank / practical joke. Which tells us a lot about Foer, and nothing about our troops.

Competent and honest human beings take care to fact check claims that they know are going to be controversial. Foer clearly didn't fact-check Thomas (because if he had, he wouldn't have to had spend the last two weeks checking again).

Therefore, we are left with three possibilities:

1: Foer is a dishonest left-wing hack who will gladly prostitute TNR to push his left-wing agenda.

2: Foer is so utterly incompetent he needs to be fired.

3: Foer is so flamingly anti-military that it destroys his ability to tell when he's being feed utter BS. As such, nothing he published about the military can be believed, because you can't trust him not to get "taken".

Which is it?

Apparently there was a cover-up of Pat Tillman's death. But how could that be? Doesn't that go against the rules? I wonder if there isn't more to this story, and the cover-up is just a cover-up for something else because I don't see how a cover-up is possible. That stuff just doesn't happen. Somebody would have reported it and stopped it dead.

Those are my only three choices???

Ehrez said: "but not actually barbaric or illegal"

And that actually proves the entire issue. Most people do not have a clue what is or is not acceptable in the military or what is illegal. They go by the books and movies they've read or seen. Most of which is fictional and exaggerated in order to sell them in the first place. Most of which does enter into the mainstream American conscience as Mythalogical fact. In other words, we saw it or read it, therefore, it is true.

It is illegal and against the UCMJ to desecrate a body. Please recall the huge scandal not so long ago when some soldiers burned the dead body of an Afghan insurgent when he started to stink and no one came to claim it.

They were given article 15s because, during the course of that burning, a procedure against the religion of the host state and only allowed for sanitary reasons, they proceeded to heckle the villagers and claim they were burning the body to insure he went to h*ll.

Thus, desecration; thus, article 15s and thus, ILLEGAL. The same would apply for Pvt B's story of cavorting with dead children's skulls.

The incredulous nature of such a claim straight out of either Hamlet or every bad Vietnam, lord of the flies, B rated psycho movie ever made should have been the red flag.

Driving a Bradley recklessly destroying private property (we're not talking about the dogs, as sick as that is, but his claims that the bradley ran through concrete walls and market stands) is illegal. The US military must take claims and pay them for any damaged property, including animals. Something they do every day. You can bet your sweet patookis if this guy was deliberately doing so, he was doing something ILLEGAL. And you can bet that the Iraqis were making these claims. It is a main line of economic development in some areas.

There is that aspect of making reports because, when they were doing screwy things like riding over stalls and concrete walls for fun, they would have been making a report at the end of their patrol about it. Then, when the Iraqis came to make their claims and it didn't match up to any reports, they would have been turned away. Except, along comes Pvt. Beauchamp and claims that, contrary to certain reports his company made on their patrols, they really did run over some market stalls and concrete barrier walls ON PURPOSE, not even in the course of a regular combat events. That would be making a false report. And it wouldn't be Pvt Beauchamp eating it on that one because he appears to be the lowest man on the totem poll. It would be the squad leader, NCO, commanding officers who have to countersign, etc, etc, etc in charge of that patrol who had to make the official report and who would be in trouble for false reports.

Making a false report is ILLEGAL and can actually get you courts martial with an Article 32, not just an article 15 (please ask the Marine officers over the patrol from Haditha, who were not at the scene, but who are charged with making false reports -amongst other things- how illegal it is; or maybe you think the military only applies that rule when there are possible murders involved?)

Now you should understand why Pvt Beauchamps words were not simply ruminations on his time in country or simple embellishments of the truth meant to entertain. The first thing that is going to happen, when they get Pvt Beauchamp before "the man", they are going to ask him if it is true. He can either say, "Yes," and give up who, what and where (because if he doesn't he'll be in contempt and get stockade time or other disciplinary action while they continue to hunt for the culprits; and, he does not strike me as the kind to go down for his friends or leadership) and a giant investigation will ensue on anybody and everybody involved. Or, he will say, "No," in which case, just because Pvt Beauchamp says "no" does not mean the JAG simply shrugs his shoulders and goes "okay" and drops everything.

Since Pvt Beauchamp will be considered to be protecting his own interests and possible friends, the JAG will proceed with investigations into his unit and those serving on the base, interviewing officers and enlisted to insure that Pvt Beauchamp was really telling the truth when he said he lied to TNR about what was happening there (you'll note the quandary that the JAG finds himself in regarding lies and the truth)

That is just the tip of the ice berg since Pvt Beauchamp personally violated some rules and made his command look like chimps. his probable motive, by the way, young Beau may have had some difficulty following some basic rules like not going AWOL for 21 days following his return from R&R when he married our erstwhile researcher at TNR - for which he may have been recently reprimanded and busted a rank somewhere within the time period his credulous reports began to appear at TNR. so yes, I think Beauchamp knew exactly what he was doing and why.

This may very well be a non-story to those of you here in the states as you try to analyze the rights and wrongs, how big or small this is, but somewhere on FOB Falcon, Beauchamp opened up a sh*t storm that is sucking in a lot of people while they sweat in the heat, try to maintain patrols in hostile territory and otherwise enjoying a truly rotten deployment now thanks to Pvt. B.

Finally, I would like to point out Foer's little prevarication at the end of one sentence when he says of course the relationship with Reeves kept them from doubting the credibility. While TNR may go on, Reeves career might have been thrown under the tracks of the Bradley along with the dogs and some of TNRs remaining credibility, complicit or not.

All for a story to boost readership and an anonymous writer's career. That is a great morality story and none of it had to be made up.

I do find it interesting how many in the media are trying to down play the significance of this story. Bizarrely, it sounds as if some folks are implying that this happens everyday and that all of the hyper-bloviating about the bias and lack of integrity in media is not so hyper after all.

Or, just as importantly, how the media is not any different than any other organization when it comes to circling the wagons and trying to knock down criticism of one of its own.

Racrecir: Rather alot of evil right-wing warmongers started off questioning Tillman's death fairly soon and kept questioning it.

The main reason people have been wondering about this is that it seems odd that it only came out in a pseudonymous story in TNR. One horrible incident sure, but 3 that were this lurid and had not been reported?

The brass does stupid things, especially when a prominent recruit, like Tillman, get killed in "intersting" circumstances. The soldiers do stupid and horrible things. Look at Abu-Ghraib. But think of the scandals that have come out: there were rumours, unhappy soldiers talked to somebody, investigations were started. The Tillman cover up started unravelling within weeks, while the Army was already conducting a criminal investigation before the media heard of Abu Ghraib.

Then there's the type of horrible things that soldiers do. Playing with body parts - yeah this can happen as the Germans in Afghanistan and the Canadians in Somalia and Aghanistan have shown. Playing with a child's skull from a mass grave when US war aims are directly related to uncovering atrocities and nobody reports it? Rather unlikely. Killing dogs and no one cares, when Americans love dogs and the locals don't? Insulting a women of indeterminate rank because she got one of the most feared injuries, and nobody does or says anything? These aren't just horrible things to do, they are really unlikely crimes.

Murders, even rapes, hopefully not, but plausible. Prisoner abuse, sure. Smuggling, extortion, skimming cash... All possible. But what was alleged in ST's pieces were really unlikely and the odds against of all of them happening to him and not be reported are stratoshperic.

Well, I've read lots of your stuff and am usually impressed, but I must say this is one of the dumbest things I've ever read...'fact checking a 2500 word article is SO difficult if not impossible for a presumably mainstream magazine'!!!
Oh, yes, those poor babies at TNR, legitimate journalism has become way, way to difficult for the kids to handle! I mean, why even fact check at all in journalism, it's such a drag, you know what I mean? Hey, kids, I got an idea, lets just call it all 'editorial' (or call our entire 'magazine' an "opinion free for all") and fire the checkers....uh, umm, wait, we don't have any checkers now.....!
Pathetic.

While I think Scott Thomas Beauchamp is a total tool and a real POS, I do think that TNR, especially knowing what would happen to their story when it was printed and would be used as a recruiting tool by the enemy in the war, should have at least made sure that the story was true in the first place.

Remember back to Abu Ghraib. At the time Seymour put out the story as if it were his own finding, the military had 4 months before removed all those involved from duty and were preparing courts martial for them. The officers were relieved from duty and many of them demoted. The military bloggers were all united in the belief that those responsible for this debacle should be tried and punished asap. Then this idiot writes a story blowing it all out of proportion, the AQ has a brand new recruiting tool, no mention was made that the military had it all under control and were taking care of the situation, and we still, years later, are hearing all about how terrible our military is that something like this could happen and that obviously the military is guilty of massive torture, etc.

Now we have another story which is almost as bad. This time we have a story which is a copy of a German story published while the reporter was stationed in Germany. We are hearing this from a soldier who after 2 years in the service is still an E-2 (can you spell f*ck-up??? - I knew you could). He is not proving any of it. The men who are familiar with the Bradley state that it could not be used in the fashion he says it was because of the fact that it cannot maneuver the way he claims it did. The things he claimed the wounded man did would not have been possible for someone who got his d*ck shot off 4 months earlier. If anyone was wounded like the woman was, she would have been airlifted to the hospital and not been on active duty to be treated as he claims she was and had anyone treated someone like that they would have lost some teeth. The whole thing is just not reasonable.

What this reminds me of more than anything is the testimony of JFKerry in 1971 when he brought all those people to Congress and it turned out that many of them had never even been to VN and others had been cooks in the rear echelon. Had they done what they claimed, then they would have been under charges. Still he got away with it and now we have another fool trying the same thing. Any bets on it? The mil-bloggers all say that if any of it can be proven then he is guilty of not reporting it as required and in addition they also all say that if true whoever was responsible should be tried immediately. Why was this not reported in channels as required rather than used as a career advancement option for this creep and his significant other (or insignificant other to be more truthful). All in all it sounds like a real cowpie to men.

Or you need some motive for why a soldier, in a war zone, would invent disturbing, but not actually barbaric or illegal, actions on behalf of the troops.

It is telling that Klein doesn't feel it is necessary to provide a motive for the soldiers who allegedly acted in a "disturbing" manner. Apparently it is just a given that soldiers taunt the wounded and run over dogs in Bradleys -- they don't need a reason. Journalists lying, though -- that's something that needs a reason, apparently. A reason beyond "drawing a paycheck", that is.

Those who see Beauchamp's writing as showing the dehumanizing effects of war are missing the fact that it's the story itself that is dehumanizing.

As John Barnes pointed out and someone up the comment thread mentioned, Beauchamp exibited an "affectation of sociopathy" in his writing.

Look at the context of the events he describes.

No one cares.

That's the essential context of his "shock troop" story. No one cares that some guy drives like a madman and runs stuff over. No one cares that someone was playing with a bit of a child's skull. No one cares about taunting the woman contractor with the "melted" face. It's all approval and laughter for Pvt. Beauchamp.

He's effectively projecting this sociopathy on his unit and including himself in that sociopathic culture. Is he confessing to it, or bragging?

Contrary to this account that dehumanizes our troops and portrays them in a way that separates them from our common human experience and our ability to identify with them, other accounts, often every bit as harsh, do the opposite. The event described might not even be that different but the context is a humanizing context. It brings us more intimately in touch with what our soldiers experience. We can see the pain and reality because we're brought closer.

Beauchamp creates distance, separation, and the dehumanizing of the people (including himeself) that he describes.

Which does go along with Barns and what he said about the affectation of sociopathy. And since Barns, at least, saw this as an almost predictable indication that some young man was aspiring to literature (which he predicted before we knew who Beauchamp was and that he certainly was aspiring to literature) it's not likely that the *tone* of his writing was accidental.

I should say that he's projecting his *affectation* of sociopathy on his unit.

I don't think the fellow is a sociopath.

A guy writes this and sends it off to TNR, where his new wife is on staff:

“Yeah man,” I continued. “I love chicks that have been intimate–with IEDs. It really turns me on–melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses … .”

You don't have to be a military man to find that sequence of events improbable. And if he would lie about this encounter (and his reporting is very much in this style), you would have to wonder about everything else.

I should point out that I too believe he is affecting this cruel demeanour and I can only assure him that his wife and his editors knew it. How else could you possibly be married to such monster?

Assume, not assure him.

Dear Jane:

You're being far too lenient on journalists. It is absolutely one of the central tenants of journalism to be sure that what they print is truthful, and that the facts therein are correct, and this is not, in the age of the internet, difficult or time consuming to do. In fact, at no time in history is it easier or faster.

Part of the problem is that most journalists have little real world experience, and even less where weapons or the military are concerned, yet, how much time and effort would it have taken for TNR to merely call the Pentagon public information office, or even the public information officer of a nearby Army post for information? Jane's Defense website (and others) features information (including voluminous photos), on virtually every weapon and armored vehicle ever made, and the list goes on and on. Considering TNR's well know credibility problem, one would think that they'd be particularly concerned with accuracy, but apparently the upholding of the agenda takes precedence over accuracy.

For the poster who asked about the Glock issue, Beauchamp, in a TNR article prior to the article that engendered the current controversy spoke of finding an empty shell casing with a square back, which he deduced must have been fired by a Glock handgun. This alone exposes Beauchamp as a fabricator, and this one cannot be explained away, because there is no such thing as square brass (which is the term used by 99% of the shooting/military population for the case--almost always made of brass--that contains the power charge, the primer and the bullet, thus comprising a complete cartridge). All brass, all firearm projectiles, are round.

Some have gone so far as to suggest that what Beauchamp meant to say was that he found a square firing pin imprint on the primer (the firing pin in a firearm strikes the soft metal primer, crushing a chemical mixture which produces spark, an ignition source for the powder, leaving, usually, a rounded indentation) of the brass, which is also on the back, and that Glock firing pins do leave a more or less square firing pin imprint (that much, at least is accurate, but Beauchamp didn't say it). But that would be like someone intending to speak about the shape of the bumper on the back of his pickup, but accidently discussing the license plate light instead. Yes, they're both on the back, both might be roughly rectangular, but they're two entirely different things.

More likely is that Beauchamp knows so little about firearms, particularly handguns, that seeing that Glock slides, particularly when viewed from the back, are square (with rounded edges), imagined that the cartridges they fire would be square as well.

Telling the truth and fact checking are the business, the very tools and methods of journalism. That anyone, particularly journalists, would try to explain away their lack of fidelity to their own credibility and profession says volumes about their personal and corporate integrity.

I, too, must be living in a cave. I did not even know of this controversy until yesterday.

Yes, a lot of this is likely to be retracted in coming weeks as the Army investigates the details.

Like Frank, I noted that the attitude displayed in some of the entries would be shocking to a girlfriend/wife unless she knew he was faking it. Considering the entire episode as a whole, it is this puzzling thing that looks the most suspicious to me.

You've made the precise argument I use for avoiding the Drive Bys and getting expertise from the experts -- bloggers in their fields. Every time I try to read a journalist's take on things, I find it fact-checked and torn apart by a blogger expert. This is certainly true when it comes to anything to do with war, weaponry, ROEs, strategery, tactics, etc. Journalists in general are stunning in their ignorance about such things. I rely on the blogosphere to bring out the truth.

To the guy who is reminded of JF'nK in this whole mess, ditto ditto ditto. This Beauchamp could be his little brother.

I believe that they were trying to take a page out of Kerry's book - belittle the soldier in the field, pander to the Left with made-up stories. It worked very well for Kerry, to become a celebrity, able to marry richer women than he, become a Senator and be re-elected, no matter that his stories were shown to be false.

This all makes perfectly good sense as to why you have these people doing what they do, and sincerely believing they can get away with it. The current media and the radical left in the country (MoveOn.org, etc.) wants these kinds of stories to be true, so they're more than ready to give it a pass and call all who question them a part of the stooge Right, Neocons, Bushies, or whatever.

I've been following this story for days, and I agree with those who believe you've been too lenient on TNR's fact-checkers. I can easily imagine this story being read aloud during Friday prayers all across the Muslim world, proving once again that Americans are brutes, desecrators, barbarians; and thus giving another reason for young men to blow themselves up to drive these American monsters out.

No one expects that every detail of every story ever written is fact-checked conclusively, but TNR's Foer must have known that tarring the U.S. military with an Abu Ghraib brush will have far-reaching consequences for American policy and the safety of our troops. This would require a very thorough fact-checking, much moreso than Andy Rooney's complaining about air travel, for example.

In short, I believe that putting out false information about American troops' behavior, during a time of war, may lead directly to more deaths. Even if it's retracted, it's out there, and TNR can't bring it back.

While I agree that it is difficult to fact check everything, I think, certain circumstances demand greater scrutiny.

One such circumstance would be harsh accusations or slander.

How could a reputable editor allow their periodical to publish criminal or horrific accusations and confessions without checking it?

I mean, really. Would you publish an article stating that Paul Krugman and other New York area economist have sex with their cats and never empty their litter box even when the shit is piled 3 feet high and over flowing through 2 rooms, if you hadn't verified it first?

Because that's essentially what the TNR did.

L

Three thoughts:

1. If you can't fact check it to your satisfaction, don't print it.
2. A writer in a position where he knows his stuff can't be adequately fact checked is more likely to lie.
3. Stories published from such environments should be subject to greater skepticism than otherwise.

Hmmmm.

@ Jane Galt

"The problem is, those experts are experts because they are off doing whatever it is they are experts on, not being journalists."

And just how difficult is it to establish contacts with experienced current or former soldiers as fact-checkers on military oriented stories?

How difficult is it? Not bloody difficult at all. All you have to do is contact one of the milbloggers and they will be happy to connect you to someone who can fact check just about anything.

Why is this? Because milbloggers have gone repeatedly on record stating that they would be happy to provide this service in order to prevent the publishing of lies.

So don't give me this "we can't do it" crap. That's a bullshit escape and you damn well know it.

Usually I'm impressed with Megan's clear-minded savvy, but not this time.

How is it the default to print vicious, explosive, partisan material in a high-profile publication and just shrug that fact-checking is too difficult?

I consider this the lazy, intellectually dishonest response of those whose ox has not been gored.

Just want to echo the denunciations of lazy fact checkers. While The Economist tends to do fairly well in its accuracy on matters of fact - except for global warming, and it is completely self destructing on the opinion side as it drifts towards The Nation style policy preferences - nearly every other media outlet is notoriously bad.

Whenever one is a subject matter expert or is fairly coversant with a field, practically every article is laughably wrong. This is especially true for economics, science, and engineering, where Liberal Arts grads with no life experience are convinced by the nearest politically attractive charlatan. The laziness of journalists knows no bounds - why write something when you can just republish the news release of a friendly, "non-partisan" advocacy group. It is, after all, "for the children" or perhaps "the polar bears".

Instead of McCain Feingold, the one anti-first amendment law should be that no one is allowed to publish anything on a subject unless they have 10 years experience in the area and a related degree or 20 years experience without a related degree. No one under 40 should be allowed a job anywhere near journalism, since they haven't done anything that would help them recognise BS when they see it. The combination of open-minded liberalism with 20 something ignorance (I'm 28 - a young fogey) is abhorrent and does incredible damage to the republic. The Foers are prodigies, but they shouldn't be let anywhere near journalism until they hit 40, if not 50. Hopefully Franklin goes down in flames for this travesty, and maybe Ezra too!

"Might I suggest that you try to fact-check a 2500 word article ..."

It had to happen eventually. Jane's been assimilated.

Oh, well. Bye, Jane, it was nice knowing you.

According to the CJR, MILBLOGGERS who are criticising Beauchamp should instead join up and serve in the Army before they go attacking him. http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/more_beauchamp_sorry.php

This post is actually true. Many milbloggers aren't current or former members of the Army. Some are/were Marines, some are/were in the Air Force, and some are/were even in the Navy. As we all know, none of these services really count, nor are they doing anything in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the larger war on terror. Who knew that interservice squabbles and stereotypes extended to the CJR. Will the CJR be sitting on the Army side at the next Army-Navy game? Or is this another example of how Beauchamp's "friends" need to stop helping?

This is just so incredibly hilarious, and couldn't have happened to better people. CJR, TNR, et al circling the drain on credibility. Now if only we can tie Ezra to this horrid fraud, all will be right in the world.

You don't need a military background to notice that his stories don't pass the smell test. I can't imagine that any contractor who was so badly disfigured by an ied would continue to be working in Iraq. It would seem to be super-human dedication on her part.

The skull wearing episode is just too bizarre. I'm willing to believe that one person could be so depraved as to try something like that, but to believe that none of his platoon mates would object to his wearing the skull all day and night, if not from the sheer demented creepiness of it then from the selfish realization that ignoring such behavior would bring discipline upon their own heads, stretches credulity beyond any reasonable standard.

Um, Foer said himself in the TNR statement that "the article was rigorously edited and fact-checked before it was published."

You seem to be criticizing people for reading that statement literally, no?

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