Scott Thomas Beauchamp Controversy - The New Republic "cannot Stand By These Stories"

The New Republic "cannot Stand By These Stories"

A December 2007 article by Franklin Foer lengthily addresses the issues of the controversy, concluding:

"In retrospect, we never should have put Beauchamp in this situation. He was a young soldier in a war zone, an untried writer without journalistic training. We published his accounts of sensitive events while granting him the shield of anonymity–which, in the wrong hands, can become license to exaggerate, if not fabricate.

"When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.

Read more about this topic:  Scott Thomas Beauchamp Controversy

Famous quotes containing the words stand and/or stories:

    Both th’ old discoveries, and the new-found seas,
    The stock and surplus, cause and historie:
    All these stand open, or I have the keyes:
    Yet I love thee.
    George Herbert (1593–1633)

    Reporters are not paid to operate in retrospect. Because when news begins to solidify into current events and finally harden into history, it is the stories we didn’t write, the questions we didn’t ask that prove far, far more damaging than the ones we did.
    Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)