Readers responded in force to two hot topics in last Sunday’s Forum: allegations of excessive force at the county jail and the paper’s public misgivings about the publication of a 2004 freelance article alleging American military atrocities in Iraq.
Interestingly in both cases, readers were about equally divided, either praising the paper for courage and intrepidness or condemning it for ideological bias and sloppiness.
Of the four dozen e-mails and phone messages, a few were neutral, several were right-wing rants and some grossly misstated the facts to fit their view, something they have no problem accusing the paper of doing.
A handful said they were former subscribers and that they either were heartened by the coverage and thinking of subscribing again or were convinced more than ever of the paper’s demise and would never subscribe again.
I find that a bit ironic; former subscribers who take pride in saying they dropped the paper but still read it regularly. Is that the journalistic equivalent of a love-hate relationship?
Most of the responses were about the Jimmy Massey story. He is the former Marine staff sergeant who in a May 2004 question-and-answer piece published in Forum described how he and fellow Marines in his company recklessly shot innocent Iraqi civilians in Baghdad during the initial phases of the war in 2003.
The veracity of Massey’s story, which he has turned into a book called “Kill! Kill! Kill!” that was recently published in France, was disputed two weeks ago in a story by Ron Harris, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter who was embedded for about two months with Massey’s unit in Iraq.
Harris’ story attracted media attention and is contentious fodder between conservatives and anti-war groups. In response, Massey stuck to his story of atrocities and accused Harris of a vendetta for Massey’s criticism of his Iraq reporting.
Last Sunday, David Holwerk, The Bee’s editorial page editor, wrote a column saying the paper had made a mistake in publishing the Massey Q&A without checking Massey’s claims more thoroughly and getting a response from the Marine Corps. He said he didn’t know who was telling the truth and referred readers to various Web sites detailing both sides of the controversy.
Conservative columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin praised the paper for a “prompt and straightforward” explanation of the “Massey Mess.” A reader said he “wanted to thank and commend … you for your integrity in owning up to, and taking responsibility for, your paper’s falling short of proper fact-checking on Jimmy Massey.”
Another reader said: “Clearly, there is a modus operandi on the left to discredit our military using vets who lie. I would think that the MSM (mainstream media) would be aware of it by now. Anyway, thanks again for the (Holwerk) article. It took guts.”
Others, however, had a much different view.
“You wanted it to be true,” said one e-mailer, echoing a theme advanced by several others. “The problem is your own bias and lack of critical thinking skills.”
“I can assure you,” said another reader, “it was your ’60s, liberal news culture that led to rushing the Massey story to print.”
In contrast, several readers chastised the paper for apologizing, including those who raised questions about the credibility of embedded reporters and what Massey would gain from lying.
“An embedded reporter is not objective,” said a reader from Auburn who described himself as a former Marine and said the paper was too contrite. “I led a Marine rifle platoon in Vietnam and find it easy to believe that Marines, under the duress of combat, would kill non-combatants and that command personnel would either turn a blind eye or, perhaps, sanction the killing.”
“Embedded journalists never made sense to me,” wrote another reader. “It’s too easy to ‘fall in love’ with the people you are with – you see their pain, you feel their fear, you depend on them for your very life under fire or living through sandstorms. You become biased by the very fact you are part of the group.”
Others – including the coauthor of Massey’s book – asked why objections to Massey’s story, which he has repeated to other newspapers and in speeches for more than a year, are only now surfacing.
“Isn’t it a little coincidental that this attack is launched a month after the book has been published in France and is about to be published in Spain?” said the coauthor Natasha Saulnier, a French freelance reporter.
A few readers said the paper was stifling comment by advocating an unrealistic standard of verification.
“It is very important that persons like Massey, who have things to say about the war based on their own participation in that war, not be withheld from the reading public,” said one reader. “Yet you seem to be taking the side … that, unless you can find some sort of irrefutable proof of the truth of critical statements made by an eyewitness to abuse, you should not print it. I strongly disagree with this view.”
As for responses to the paper’s coverage of allegations of excessive force at the county jail, a handful of readers who identified themselves as former or current sheriff’s deputies or policemen were split on the stories.
Some of them said the paper was being sensationalistic and unfair to the deputies at the jail, while others said they appreciated the paper’s aggressiveness.
“I like big cops and bigger firemen,” said one reader’s e-mail. “We are not paying the police to have fair fights. However, I agree that it is the Bee’s job to ferret out abuses and ask tough questions.”
A few readers said that, while they supported the paper delving into the excessive force issue, they found what they considered sloppy, unprofessional errors by researchers and in headlines.
“It’s the headline that catches a reader’s eye,” one reader wrote, “and it’s what’s in the headline that remains with him after the story is read.”
