Reviewing National Review

Several months ago one of National Review's blogs ran posts by contributor W. Thomas Smith, Jr. from Beirut. Smith described several things—"a sprawling Hezbollah tent city" with "some 200-plus heavily armed Hezbollah militiamen," and "4,000 and 5,000 HezB gunmen deployed to the Christian areas"—that appear not to have existed. Thomas Edsall has the details here, with more here from David Kenner.

This in itself is no judgment on National Review. While some publications do better fact-checking than others (Mother Jones is one of the best, in my experience), no one can produce 100% error-free journalism.

What does matter is how editors react when problems are brought to their attention. Glenn Greenwald explains what's happened to date here. National Review's online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez was alerted to the implausibility of Smith's claims six weeks ago by two journalists with experience in Lebanon. Yet she appears to have acted only when she realized Edsall would be writing about it. (ADDED CLARIFICATION: Mitchell Prothero, a Beirut photographer, writes here that he contacted National Review "more than six weeks ago." Harper's publishes here an email sent by journalist Chris Allbritton on October 6th calling Smith "a liar." However, it's unclear who at National Review would have received it. Lopez posts here her version of events, which does not mention Prothero or Allbritton.)

This reminds me of my own experience with Lopez. In October of last year, she wrote a post about the Johns Hopkins study estimating the number of deaths in Iraq since the invasion as 655,000. Lopez printed email from "A Hill Guy" reading:

The article below will be a story today, even though it shouldn’t...Even Human Rights Watch said the earlier report by these same researchers was “certainly prone to inflation due to overcounting.”

This quote was accurate, so far as it went. Marc Garlasco, a military analyst for Human Rights Watch, said it in a 2004 Washington Post article.

However, since then Garlasco has repeatedly disavowed it; e.g., in this Chronicle of Higher Education story:

Mr. Garlasco says now that he had not read the paper at the time and calls his quote in the Post "really unfortunate." He says he told the reporter, "I haven't read it. I haven't seen it. I don't know anything about it, so I shouldn't comment on it." But, Mr. Garlasco continues, "like any good journalist, he got me to." Mr. Garlasco says he misunderstood the reporter's description of the paper's results.

So when I saw Lopez relying on the original Garlasco quote, I sent her a polite email, suggesting she should update the post. I also pointed out there was a real story here: a Capitol Hill staffer, who presumably was involved in America's Iraq policies, didn't know basic information about the subject. It wasn't hard to learn, either: out of the top five results in a Google search for "Garlasco Lancet Iraq", one is the original Post story and the other four refer to Garlasco's disavowal.

In any case, Lopez never responded to my email and never updated the original post. As far as I know she's never addressed her source's mistake anywhere, much less pointed out its significance.

Still, it's always best to give people the benefit of the doubt; perhaps Lopez just missed what I sent her. I'll try her again now, and update this if she's willing to say anything further about it.

Comments

Good work, keep it up and try your best to keep them honest. The truth is important enough to keep the mistakes in check.

Thanks

Posted by: capt on 12/02/07 at 6:38 PM Respond

The link you've provided for the Washinton Post does not refer to the 2006 report which estimated deaths at over 655,000, but instead to an earlier article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7967-2004Oct28.html )from 2004 which had concluded that the death toll from the first year of the war had amounted to 100,000 civilians. It is in the 2004 report that Marc Garlasco is quoted as calling its conclusions 'inflated'.

Both studies drew heavy fire from the American and British administrations, though for almost entirely political reasons. New Scientist has published two articles on the subject (including an interview with one of the epidemiologists who wrote the reoprt, Gilbert Burnham) which are well worth reading if you're interested in the subject, though I believe they may require a subscription to view.

Posted by: Baron on 12/03/07 at 2:44 AM Respond

capt,

Thank you. I will update this by tomorrow to indicate whether Lopez has responded, and if so, what she says.

Baron,

Correct. The "Hill Guy" who wrote to Lopez referred to a comment by Human Rights Watch on the "earlier report" so as to discredit the subsequent study.

Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz on 12/03/07 at 6:17 AM Respond

For the sake of fairness, and even though Smith doesn't know Shi'ite from Shinola, the tent city exists, although without the armed gunmen. In any case, there's plenty in his reports that doesn't.

Posted by: sean on 12/04/07 at 4:46 PM Respond

The link didn't seem to work: http://thehumanprovince.blogspot.com/2007/12/not-knowing-shi-from-shinola.html

Posted by: sean on 12/04/07 at 4:48 PM Respond