Wow. Jane Hamsher’s comments on that awful “The New Republic publishes a hit piece on Chris Hedges” post are so flippant and irresponsible they need a post of their own. Ethics, people! Journalistic ethics! This isn’t rocket surgery (to plagiarize a phrase I saw a few days ago and don’t remember the source of). Writers and journalists should tell the truth, and they shouldn’t put their names on other people’s work except in the standard way with proper attribution.
Hamsher comments on a suggestion of litigation.
Hedges is a public figure, and they’re pretty careful about what they say so I doubt a suit would get very far. But it’s a piece that they should be ashamed to have published. At 5,700 words it’s like the War and Peace of online journalism.
Do you see the full stupidity of that? First she admits the article probably tells the truth, then she says TNR should be ashamed of publishing it because it’s so long! Godalmighty.
For the record, TNR does sometimes publish long pieces. That just is something it does. Paul Berman has had very long articles published there, like the one on Tariq Ramadan.
Then someone else complains about the length, and Hamsher responds again.
It just kept going on. And on. And on. I finally just put it in a word counter. It’s clearly an attempt at “where there’s smoke there’s fire” insinuation, but I can’t imagine anyone who didn’t hate Hedges righteously would have the patience to read through.
Not clearly at all, because it’s not smoke. Also there’s that bit about doubting a lawsuit would get very far? Because it’s probably true?
And yet more of the “it was too looooooong and too hard to reeeeeeead” commentary from the person announcing it was a hit piece. (Maybe this explains her sympathy for Hedges; she’s a lazy reader so she has sympathy for his laziness as a writer.)
I confess to giving up about 2/3 of the way through when it was apparent it was never going to end, so if anyone takes the trouble to read through that and finds some actual proof, let us know. Then we can all sit and scratch our heads at why they buried their lede 4000 words down.
It would be kind of funny if Ketcham decided to sue Hamsher for accusing him of lying when she doesn’t even believe he did lie.