Letters to the Editor
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Six weeks to reveal fabrication points up more differences vs Beauchamp
Having always viewed National Review and Townhall.com as Fox News with stationary words and pictures, it’s not too surprising (I know Glenn detests that type of comment, but bear with me) that they sat on Thomas Smith’s warmongering fabrications for six weeks. However, it does bring out even more contrasts with the Beauchamp affair.
When the Beauchamp article was published, the right wing propaganda machine, as always, was on it from day one, attacking its validity right at the outset, only worrying to fill in the blanks as necessary later. (Which they never have done to any objective degree, except to meet what is probably their only criterion for deeming something to be true: repeating it often enough.)
By contrast, Thomas Smith’s NR-certified, 100% Grade-A fable festered a full six weeks until discovery because the left, the center, or any other part of the political spectrum has no similarly-efficient political response (effluvial-spewing?) mechanism in place. In addition, it did not make the light of day until a journalist concluded that there was definitely a problem with Smith’s story after exhaustive research and interviews of numerous sources on the matter. No publications were pressured to report the issue a certain way until the facts were known.
And this is exactly the way it should have been done, an objective, thorough search of the facts and circumstances to reach a conclusion, not the reverse, where facts are distorted all along the way and those who disagree are threatened in an egocentric effort to make every issue an affirmation of one’s political ideology. Pete Hoekstra revealed a lot when he said FISA was a political issue rather than a legal one.
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And for the latest on Fox News’s journalistic professionalism, their outright butchery of the Clinton campaign office hostage situation can be seen at (h/t crooksandliars.com):
http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/20124-fox-blows-it
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Wow, I'm controversial now
@Anonymous-who-calls-me-terminally-stupid:
I'm not really going to spend a lot of time debating with someone who (a) won't even bother making up a name here and (b) considers the aggregate result of Wikipedia editing to be the definitive distinction between "controversy" and "scandal". Nor do I really care if one IS a controversy and the other a scandal. I think both suck - maybe even (gasp) in different ways! - and both deserve reporting. My point is that bothering to compare them only distracts from the real discussion. I think that point's been amply demonstrated here as commenter after commenter tries to explain to me how much more important the one is than the other.
@Another-anonymous-who-says-I'm-doing-what-I-complain-about:
Could you elaborate? I hate to be a hypocrite. I also know that we're most blind to our own faults. It seems that, to you, my words themselves illustrate the problem so clearly that you don't even have to explain it. I've reread them, and I don't see how. So pretend I'm, say, terminally stupid (try hard!) and explain it to me.
@Bryce: Interesting distinction. I guess, for me, "transparent" implies "up front", "open". Drawing out the conclusion over 14 pages, burying what I consider to be the lead (it was fact-checked by his wife!) on page 3, and then not even clearly using The R Word seems to obfuscate the matter. It's probably not even intentional. I just don't think it's a particularly shining example of "impressive transparency". It could have been done much better - and if it could have been done much better, how impressive is it?
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Kathryn Jean Lopez: Smith was too trusting of those lying Arabs
Beyond satire: http://tiny.cc/DgUM6
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K-Lo blogging at "the corner"
http://corner.nationalreview.com
Sunday, December 02, 2007
What This is Not [Kathryn Jean Lopez]A few additional words on what the situation with the Smith Lebanon reporting is and what it isn’t: It isn’t a case of fabrication, as some of Smith’s accusers have alleged.
[...] As one of our sources put it: “The Arab tendency to lie and exaggerate about enemies is alive and well among pro-American Lebanese Christians as much as it is with the likes of Hamas.” While Smith vouches for his sources, we cannot independently verify what they told him. That’s why we’re revisiting the posts in question and warning readers to take them with a grain of salt.
As editor, my position is mistakes are mistakes and they're all bad. But because of what I'm reading in other blogs, I feel the need to add: The Smith matter is not the Scott Thomas Beauchamp episode. For one thing, Beauchamp himself falsified the details of his story — claiming that he witnessed things in Iraq that he later claimed happened in Kuwait, etc. If Smith was too trusting of his sources, that is a journalistic faux pas of an entirely different sort. It does not, contrary to some bloggers’ claims, make him a fabulist.
- - Kathryn Jean Lopez
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K-Lo blogging at "the tank"
http://tank.nationalreview.com
the tank
NRO's MILITARY BLOGSunday, December 02, 2007
What Did I Know and When Did I Know It? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]So everyone knows the chronology here: Deep into the second week of November, W. Thomas Smith Jr. was contacted by Tom Edsall and an e-mail was forwarded from Edsall to me from our ad dept.
[...]
While I knew something was wrong before last week, I did not know about it six weeks ago, as some have reported, and while you can question all the calls I made, there was never any intention here to make excuses or hide anything.
I wish this hadn’t happened. I still think Smith is a well-intentioned reporter. We post him on a submission-by-submission basis and will continue to do so unless we have reason to decide otherwise. (And we are currently doing a more thorough review of all his work.)
- - Kathryn Jean Lopez
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Jay L
My point is that bothering to compare them only distracts from the real discussion. I think that point's been amply demonstrated here as commenter after commenter tries to explain to me how much more important the one is than the other.
-- Jay L
You tried to make a point. Then commenters told you that they disgreed with your point or thought your "point" didn't make sense. So then you conclude that because commenters disagreed with your point, those voiced disgreements "amply demonstrated" your point?
Jeeslouise, man, that there is some mighty wild-ass strange logic.