A phrase that the “old media” made famous is that it’s not the crime that creates the biggest problem, it’s the cover-up. That’s the situation that The New Republic seems to find itself in as it tries to deal with the tales told by a private who set out to smear our soldiers in Iraq.
Confederate Yankee has gone to the source and ... it appears that TNR's "fact checkers" are not up to the job.
For a summary of the sordid tale go to Michelle Malkin who, as usual, has a wealth of detail and a great roundup of what the bloggers are saying about this issue.
Jeff Goldstein does a hilarious takeoff on the story: If instead of an anti-war soldier, Scott Beauchamp were a combat-coarsened Keebler Elf and Beauchamp follow-up: on narrative reinforcement and the trope of “significance”
What I am continually grateful for is the fact that we now have a check on the media. There is an ancient saying by Juvenal that has always been true: “quis custodiet ipsos custodies” or “Who will guard the guards?”
Newspapers have long maintained the position of guardians of the people from government wrongdoing. But who has been watching the newspapers (and magazines, TV and radio) and checking to see if they are the purveyors of “truth” instead of the inventors of lies?
I am currently reading “The Reagan Diaries” edited by Douglas Brinkley. In his diary, Reagan recounts the fact that the events that he participated in were lied about and distorted by an antagonistic media. Today, there is a “feel-good” aura about the Reagan Presidency and few in the media will have the courage to disparage this good man, especially as he is largely responsible for the defeat of the Soviet Union. But during his presidency, Reagan was reviled and disparaged as an evil, senile old fool.
What is truly amazing is that, despite the ability of the Internet to fact-check the output of the media, the dinosaurs that inhabit those fever swamps still don’t realize that their ability to blatantly lie and create their own “reality” is fast coming to an end.
Who will guard the guards? It looks like we have a whole world of people who are willing and able to fulfill that chore.
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