Monday, July 30, 2007

Shock troop journalism

From Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard blog

When the Columbia Journalism Review solicits donations, it explains its mission like this:

We are dedicated to defending quality journalism, which has many enemies and challenges these days. Our best weapons are deep analysis and investigation, and these tools can be expensive. We rely on people like you to help us produce the kind of magazine and website that can make a difference.

This description is hard to square with CJR's own coverage of the Scotty Beauchamp story, which ran under the headline, "Why do conservatives hate the troops?"

CJR does not examine the complexities and challenges of pseudonymous writing, or the fact that the New Republic has failed to produce any corroboration for Beauchamp's account, or the delicacy of fact-checking spouses of your own employee. Instead, CJR writer Paul McCleary attacks milbloggers for being chickenhawks.

How dare a college grad and engaged citizen volunteer to join the Army to fight for his country! (Which is something that most of the brave souls who inhabit the milblog community prefers to leave to others.) While there are some very legitimate questions about what Beauchamp wrote, nothing, it's worthy of note, has been proved false yet. But that hasn't stopped the sharp knives of a slew of bloggers from coming out.

McCleary clearly has a lot to learn, starting with an understanding of what a milblog is and the experiences of those who write them. (Hint: mil is short for military.) CJR's donors may want to ask for a refund.

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