A recap of today’s New York Times coverage, for those of you keeping score at home. In this morning’s paper, the Times runs a story on the questions surrounding the credibility of New Republic‘s Baghdad Diarist. The last line of that story seems to indicate that New Republic editor Frank Foer is less than 100 percent certain that “Scott Thomas”, the pseudonymous author, is even a U.S. soldier:
The editors at the New Republic almost immediately–within an hour of the story being published–respond with this clarification at their blog:
Foer does not claim that the Times had misquoted him, but early this afternoon, the Times story was revised and the “near certainty” quote deleted. The last line of the Times story then read:
That’s version 2.0. When this change was brought to our attention by postings at Hot Air, Ace of Spades, and Little Green Footballs, the WWS placed a call to the New York Times to inquire whether the paper had, in fact, misquoted Foer. While waiting to hear back, we refreshed our browser and saw that the Times story had reverted to the earlier version that included the quote that Foer knew with “near certainty” that “Thomas” is, in fact, a soldier. Version 1.0 returns. Then around 5 o’clock this afternoon, the Times changed the piece again, maintaining the integrity of the original piece, but adding a new final line that echoes Foer’s blog post from 12:30 am last night:
Call this Version 3.0 We’ll be hitting the refresh button often. Postscript: Whether “Scott Thomas” is or is not a soldier, the doubts raised about the stories he’s told have not dissipated. Earlier today, via Gateway Pundit, MNF-I released a statement about the as yet unidentified “Thomas”:
