William Langewiesche
As described by The New York Observer, Shearer "took on" journalist William Langewiesche after the latter published the controversial book on the September 11, 2001, attacks, American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center. Using forensic evidence, Shearer criticized the author's troubling claims that the FDNY looted jeans from the wreckage of Ground Zero.
The Observer quotes Shearer as saying that "she has sent both Farrar, Straus and Giroux and The Atlantic Monthly a 33-page blow-by-blow rebuttal of 56 facts and statements in the three-part magazine article that was the basis of the book. In it, the authors of the rebuttal — Ms. Shearer and a group of New York City firemen, Port Authority and NYPD officers, construction workers and family members of the victims — write: 'Throughout his articles, Mr. Langewiesche continuously uses slanderous innuendo to denigrate uniformed rescue personnel and construction workers. Such statements are libelous.'"
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