TNR’s Disgrace

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.” Nine weeks later, however, they have produced no new information and their promises to do so seem empty. Indeed, TNR’s August 10 statement and the silence that has followed become increasingly dishonest with each passing day. Then TNR said that the Army was “stonewalling” its investigation and that the Army had “rejected our requests to speak to Beauchamp.” We now know that TNR editor Franklin Foer spoke with Scott Beauchamp on September 7. Of course, it wasn’t TNR that reported this call, but rather blogger Bob Owens, who learned of the call from an Army spokesman. Further, “the editors” responded to earlier reports that Beauchamp had recanted and no longer stood by his “Shock troops” column by saying, in TNR’s carefully worded formulation, that “it is our understanding that Beauchamp continues to stand by his stories and insists that he has not recanted them.” TNR did not refute the report, but neither was it conceding the fact. Five weeks after speaking with Beauchamp him “the editors” have not contradicted the report. And its accuracy has since been confirmed, on the record, by Beauchamp’s commanding officer, Col. Ricky Gibbs. TNR has made no effort to challenge Gibbs’s account either.