Two Months In: Franklin Foer, Will You Honor Your Word?

Two months ago today, Michael Goldfarb challenged the Scott Thomas story "Shock Troops" posted in the New Republic, igniting a firestorm of criticism by military personnel and bloggers who found the published claims to be less than credible.

In response to growing doubts from critics and his own readers, Franklin Foer, editor of The New Republic, stated on July 20:

I've spoken extensively with the author of the piece and have communicated with other soldiers who witnessed the events described in the diarist. Thus far, these conversations have done nothing to undermine--and much to corroborate--the author's descriptions. I will let you know more after we complete our investigation."

Now, almost two months after making that promise and precisely two months after the story was first questioned, Foer has yet to announce the findings of that investigation.

We know that Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the author of the three stories Foer ran in The New Republic, had a chance to speak with The New Republic 12 days ago. We also know that Beauchamp has refused to discuss his original claims with any other media organization, and gave a blanket statement to the PAO to relay to media organizations that he will not discuss the incidents in his stories, period. It appears that Beauchamp will not speak to Franklin Foer any more about these articles, and that he may have frozen him out, perhaps upon the direction of a lawyer.

Foer now knows, or should know, whether or not Beauchamp will stand by his earlier claims.

If he can provide further support for Shock Troops and the two previous articles, Foer needs to produce it. If he cannot, Franklin Foer owes it to his readers to retract all three of Scott Beauchamp's stories, which a military investigation revealed to be completely uncorroborated, and portions of which one of the magazine's own experts found "highly unlikely."

To date, Franklin Foer, Jason Zengerle, and the rest of The New Republic have been unable to provide so much as a single named expert, a single named witness, or a single concrete fact to support the claims made in "Shock Troops."

I call upon Franklin Foer to honor his word: present the findings of TNR's investigation.

If you will not, resign.

Update: Lessons unlearned:

The High and Mighty Just after Baghdad fell in early 2003, CNN ran an astonishing confession on the New York Times’s op-ed page admitting that it had known, but kept secret, some “awful things” about the regime of Saddam Hussein over the years. “Each time I visited, I became more distressed by what I saw and heard—awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff,” wrote Eason Jordan, CNN’s chief news executive. “I came to know several Iraqi officials well enough that they confided in me that Saddam Hussein was a maniac who had to be removed.” The piece went into some gruesome detail of atrocities CNN “could not report,” for fear of reprisal from the dictator. “I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me,” he confessed.

Then why didn’t CNN leave Iraq and alert the rest of the world about these “gut-wrenching tales” and atrocities?

For a couple of weeks, other mainstream media reported moral outrage. The New Republic's Franklin Foer shot back that this couldn't even be called a belated outbreak of honesty. "If it were, Mr. Jordan would be portraying CNN as Saddam's victim. He'd be apologizing for its cooperation with Iraq's erstwhile information ministry—and admitting that CNN policy hinders truthful coverage of dictatorships." CNN was, Foer stated, the network of record. "It makes rich reading to return to transcripts and compare the CNN version of Iraq with the reality that has emerged."

The lesson never quite sank in.

Obviously.