Beauchamp Follow-Up

From my streaming headlines:

Bob Steele, the Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values at The Poynter Institute school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla., said granting a writer anonymity "raises questions about authenticity and legitimacy."

"Anonymity allows an individual to make accusations against others with impunity," Steele said. "In this case, the anonymous diarist was accusing other soldiers of various levels of wrongdoing that were, at the least, moral failures, if not violations of military conduct. The anonymity further allows the writer to sidestep essential accountability that would exist, were he identified."

Steele said he was troubled by the fact that the magazine did not catch the scene-shifting from Kuwait to Iraq of the incident Beauchamp described involving the disfigured woman.

"If they were doing any kind of fact-checking, with multiple sources, that error - or potential deception - would have emerged," Steele said.

He added that he was also troubled by the relationship between Beauchamp and Reeve, his wife, who works at The New Republic. "It raises the possible specter of competing loyalties, which could undermine the credibility of the journalism," he said.

Some serious considerations, but this is somewhat of a dodge. Scott Beauchamp is not a journalist, he is, in important respects, a whistle-blower, and is subject to reprisals, which seem to be happening right now: his cell phone and computer have been confiscated, and, having signed a recantation, he is now incommunicado. The Army is keeping mum, citing "personnel matters." I have to say I'm not completely convinced: this is something beyond a personnel matter, and involves another potential PR black eye for the military, which has never been notorious for confronting these kinds of reports openly and honestly. Its history is rather one of cover-ups and whitewashes. I remember the Navy's first reaction to the beating death of Allen Schindler: they simply claimed that it didn't happen.

I find it interesting that when New Republic did their own checking, they found corroboration, with one error in location; when the Army started asking questions, everyone disputed the stories. Why is it that I don't trust the Army to conduct its own investigation? Can you say "Pat Tillman"?

As far as I can see, Beauchamp's relationship with his then-fiance and now wife is largely irrelevant. It may have provided access, but competing loyalties? How? The implication seems to be that NR was looking for dirt and used that relationship to find it. That's thin, at best, and verges strongly on conspiracy thinking at worst.

AP seems to be after NR a bit, citing one previous instance of "fabrications" by a writer who was fired when they were discovered, but trying to make it sound like a pattern. Sadly, no.

Update:

Remember this post from Josh Marshall? I'd forgotten it, even though I linked to it (don't ask me where my brain has been -- mostly trying to make sense out of a book that doesn't make sense, I guess). At least we're both asking the right questions.