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August 14, 2006
LA Times: Journalistic Atrocity
"The Los Angeles Times made quite a splash with its lengthy article detailing how American troops allegedly committed atrocities during the Vietnam War 40 years ago. Left-wing bloggers have been swooning over the Sunday showcase piece, "Vietnam: The War Crimes Files." And no wonder. The whopping 4,400-word article, describing alleged atrocities as if they happened only yesterday, was not really about Vietnam: It was about Iraq.
"Only the most obtuse reader could miss that. The authors slipped "Iraq" into the narrative after 400 words, with mentions of alleged atrocities and prisoner abuse there.
"To date, conservative bloggers and readers have paid little attention to “The War Crimes Files.” Presumably, they glanced at it and quickly dismissed it as more agenda-driven reporting aimed at stopping “Bush’s War.”
"In their cursory look, however, those readers missed an intriguing element in the story – and perhaps its most important element. The lead author, Nick Turse, is not a staff writer like co-author Deborah Nelson. He is “a freelance journalist living in New Jersey” who, as an editor’s note mentioned, had uncovered archival material on Vietnam War atrocities “while researching his doctoral dissertation.”
"What the editor's note omitted is that Turse also has a long history of supporting radical leftist causes and writing for radical websites and lefty publications such as Mother Jones and The Village Voice. Hiring him to research and write a piece on Vietnam War atrocities was comparable to hiring a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan to pen a major news article on affirmative action and race relations."
To read the rest of Seraphic Friend Daviud Paulin's fascinating article, click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at August 14, 2006 03:59 PM
Comments
Seraphic Secret is private property, that's right, it's an extension of our home, and as such, Karen and I have instituted two Seraphic Rules and we ask commentors to act respectfully.
1. No profanity.2. No Israel bashing. We debate, we discuss, we are respectful. You know what Israel bashing is. The world is full of it. Seraphic Secret is one of the few places in the world that will not tolerate this form of anti-Semitism. That's it. Break either of these rules and you will be banned.
A lot of people felt the same way about M*A*S*H*, which was supposedly about the Korean War, but was really about Vietnam.
Newspapers and TV stations don't know how much better they would make things for themselves if they would divulge the backgrounds of their contributors. For one thing, knowing that they would have to make that info public might preclude them from running pieces like this in the first place.
Posted by: Jake at August 15, 2006 06:32 AM