So, tomorrow will be two months since TNR’s last official statement on the credibility of Scott Beauchamp’s stories. In that statement, the editors reaffirmed their “commitment to the truth” and slammed the Army for preventing them from talking to Private Beauhcamp. The Army was “stonewalling” their investigation, the editors said. Today, Bob Owens reports that TNR seems to be the one stonewalling. TNR did speak to Beauhcamp…more than a month ago.
TNR interviewed Scott Thomas Beauchamp over a month ago. TNR interviewed investigating officer Major John Cross after I interviewed him for Pajamas Media roughly a week later. At this stage of the game, one must wonder how much longer Franklin Foer, Jason Zengerle, and the other TNR editors involved in this farcical investigation can continue to hide the obvious fact that this was a series of stories that has not been corroborated, are partially or entirely fictional in nature, and poorly (or never) fact-checked, probably because of the author’s relationship with a TNR staffer that he later married. One must begin to wonder just how ethical Editor-In-Chief Martin Peretz and Executive Editor J. Peter Scoblic are in not reacting to the obvious facts that key elements of the stories written by Scott Beauchamp were not fact checked, and that Franklin Foer and Jason Zengerle are running what appears to be a purposefully deceptive investigation to cover up the lack of fact-checking prior to publication, while apparently lying to readers, experts, critics, and perhaps even their own employers at TNR and CanWest Mediaworks. I’d love to know what Scott Thomas and Major Cross had to say to TNR, but The New Republic seems content to continue to answer questions about their credibility and ethics with silence.
It’s also worth noting that Owen’s report includes this quote from Major Kirk Luedeke:
Pvt. Beauchamp also canceled scheduled interviews with Newsweek and the Washington Post after speaking to TNR.
After accusing the Army of stonewalling, TNR seems to have asked Beauchamp to stonewall those who are committed to getting to the bottom of this. What might Beauchamp have told the New Republic that would compel such a request? We suspect he told them that he does not stand by his stories, as his commanding officer, Col. Ricky Gibbs, told us in an interview two weeks ago.
