Say Anything Blog

Randall Hoven

Scott Beauchamp was the last straw. I realized that I need a scorecard to keep track of all the fallen journalists, journalistic mistakes and major and minor screw-ups in the media. I couldn’t find one already made, although Wikipedia came close, so I started my own. I apologize if there is a good list already out there, but I looked and could not find.

Offenses include lying and fabricating, doctoring photos, plagiarism, conflicts of interest, falling for hoaxes, and overt bias. Some are hilarious, such as an action figure doll being mistaken for a real soldier. Some are silly, such as reporting on a baseball game watched on TV. Some are more serious.

I leave it to you to judge whether the internet damaged “journalism’s ability to do its job professionally”, as Marvin Kalb accuses, or if the internet has in fact helped expose an already damaged “profession”.

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3. Associated Press (AP) (2005). Fell for hoax and phony photo. The AP ran a story, with a photo, about a soldier held hostage in Iraq. The photo turned out to be that of an action figure doll; there was no such soldier.

4. Mike Barnicle, Boston Globe (1998). Lying/fabricating and plagiarism. Totally made up stories, including one about a black kid and a white kid with cancer. Also used quotes from George Carlin as his own. Fired from the Boston Globe.



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6. Scott Beauchamp, The New Republic (2007). Lying. TNR hired this U.S. Army private and husband of one of its own reporters to write first-hand accounts from Iraq. One of his accounts, supposedly demonstrating the dehumanizing effects of the Iraq war on him and fellow soldiers, occurred in Kuwait before Beauchamp even entered Iraq. Other parts of his writing are likely false, and if not, constitute military crimes on his part. In fact, his anonymous writing from a war zone is likely against military rules. This story is currently unfolding.

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8. Michael Bellesiles, professor of history, author of Arming America and recipient of Columbia University’s Bancroft Prize. Lying/fabricating. He made “myth shattering” claims about the history of guns in America that were based on fabricated historical records. He resigned from Emory University.

9. Joe Biden, U.S. Senator and candidate for President (1988). Plagiarism. He withdrew from the 1988 presidential race after being discovered “delivering, without attribution, passages from a speech by British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock… a serious plagiarism incident involving Biden during his law school years; the senator’s boastful exaggerations of his academic record at a New Hampshire campaign event; and the discovery of other quotations in Biden’s speeches pilfered from past Democratic politicians.” He’s still a Senator, and back in the race for 2008.

10. Jayson Blair, The New York Times (2003). Lying/fabricating. He fabricated parts or all of at least 36 stories. He, along with his bosses Gerald Boyd and Howell Raines, resigned from the NYT.

11. The Boston Globe (2004). Fake photos, fake story. The Boston Globe published pictures alleging U.S. troops raped Iraqi women. The pictures turned out to be commercially available pornography.

12. Paul Bradley Richmond Times-Dispatch (2006). Lying/fabricating. Made up his story on reactions to President Bush’s speech on immigration. He fabricated interviews. He reported on an event in the first person, yet he was not even in the same town. He was fired.

13. Rick Bragg, The New York Times (2003). “Drive-by” reporting. “Bragg’s defense—that it is common for Times correspondents to slip in and out of cities to ‘get the dateline’ while relying on the work of stringers, researchers, interns and clerks—has sparked more passionate disagreement than the clear-cut fraud and plagiarism committed by Blair. The issue, put starkly, is whether readers are being misled about how and where a story was reported.” He resigned.



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* If this is the visible part of the iceberg, just how big is the iceberg?

Read the whole thing; it’s in two parts, with 83 miscreants so far.

The lying, bias and general villany of the MSM cannot be over emphasized. They are literally poisoning the information well.