The Beauchamp Controversy Under The Microscope
Cathy Young puts the ongoing Beauchamp controversy under the microscope in a must read post:
The Scott Thomas Beauchamp brouhaha is a proverbial tempest in a teapot. The claims Beauchamp made (as the barely pseudonymous “Scott Thomas”) in his “Baghdad Diarist” New Republic article about American soldiers behaving badly are fairly trivial; the war in Iraq does not stand or fall on their truthfulness. Nonetheless, the blogosphere’s reaction to the story has been sharply divided along pro-war and anti-war lines almost from the start, and this across-the-board knee-jerk response is, perhaps, the most interesting (if depressing) aspect of the entire affair.
Right meme: it’s a liberal media conspiracy to besmirch the war effort by encouraging a leftist literary poseur to publish fictional or embellished stories painting soldiers as depraved sociopaths. Left meme: it’s a right-wing cyber-lynching of a soldier telling the ugly truth about the war. TNR’s announcement that it has confirmed the story to its satisfaction has not changed any minds.
Her ending:
The] fact that a magazine like TNR (whose current issue, by the way, features a magnificent, poignant selection of photos from Iraq by freelance photographer Ashley Gilbertson) owes its readers real accuracy, not just a “close enough.” Truth in journalism matters; that’s why the Beauchamp saga is not entirely trivial. And even those who are rightly disgusted by the hysteria about “slandering the troops” should not overlook this fact. In the end, Beauchamp and his persecutors may well deserve each other.
Read it all from beginning to end.
And also read this post of hers, too.
8 Responses to “The Beauchamp Controversy Under The Microscope”
Is it only me who’s becoming a lil bit picky, or is there a general tendency nowadays to label stories about even the most remote sideline issues a ‘must read’? Hmm.
Imho ‘must read if you’re interested in this at all’ would be much better. Ok, just my personal opinion. This isn’t really important, I just needed to vent my growing frustration about all these ‘must read’ this, ‘must read’ that…
No misunderstanding, pls: Joe, I totally understand, looking at your background, that you have a strong interest in all things journalism. However, the same can’t be said about TMVs readers, or at least most of them.
John Cole’s take on this brings up something related to this tempest, seems murder isn’t as important as a little embellished facts. Will Michele get upset by this:
Seems the military is giving out “Libby’s”.
Good tom point this out, Rudi! Yup, there we have a real issue that gets brushed under the carpet while an incredible lot of people get in rage over the question whether that wannabe author Beauchamp has been vetted good enough.
For Christ’s sake…
I’m still afraid I will be misunderstood: Joe, of course it’s your right to focus on journalistic issues. In fact, I appriciate this meta-view at media. The (manipulative) role of the media in shaping the political landscape is huge, and certainly worth of attention. It’s just that the combination of ‘Must read’ and ‘Beauchamp’ somewhat is a red rag for me…
well, sry it’s me again, but beter than no feedback at all, right?
Well, I’m quite unhappy about this statement:
“Left meme: it’s a right-wing cyber-lynching of a soldier telling the ugly truth about the war.”
No hiding behind strawmen, pls, who said this? Are there realy enough lefties holding such a view that it’s appropriate to call this the “left meme”? Actually, I surfing a lot in the left wing blogosphere, but this hasn’t yet come to my attention.
If its only TNR who hold this view: Well, they support Lieberman and the Iraq war. How left is that? Imho they are centrists.
Personally I like Phil Carter’s take best over at Slate.
Yup, a good story, Entropy, adding some much needed perspective. Thx for the link, I would have missed it. Don’t regularly read Slate (mostly because of that idiot Kaus writing for them)…