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The Lessons of TNR's Baghdad DiaristThe good news about the bad news the magazine is finally accepting.

By Jack Shafer
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2007, at 6:23 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Experienced writers whose lengthy résumés include awards and credentials can swindle their editors every bit as fast as a kid. Remember what Patricia Smith did to the Boston Globe, what Jack Kelley did to USA Today, and what Christopher Newton did to the Associated Press? Three members of the journalistic pantheon—H.L. Mencken, A.J. Liebling, and Joseph Mitchell—all made up things in the course of their careers.

Nor can every young fabulist be thwarted by experienced editors. The New York Times got took by Jayson Blair and Michael Finkel, and the Washington Post got took by Janet Cooke. The New Republic got took by Stephen Glass. Not to put myself on the same level with Times and Post editors, but I got took by Jay Forman.

It's very hard to beat a good liar who has gained your trust, and journalism isn't the only profession in which this applies. Several times a year, scandal breaks out in science when researchers get caught making up data. Accountants run off with their clients' money all the time. Captains of industry loot their companies. Lawyers, engineers, teachers, and even geologists swindle people after gaining their confidence. And while it would be pretty to think that institutional "reforms" could prevent Beauchampery in journalism and other professions, it's just not true.

Readers were the victims of the Baghdad diarist, but they'd be bigger victims still if publications stopped running pseudonymous pieces in reaction to the New Republic fiasco. I can count on one hand the number of pseudonymous pieces I've authorized in my career, but the ones I've run turned out to be worth the risk, a risk that I did my best to minimize by doing due diligence before the pieces were published. Ours would be a lesser world if George F. Kennan had not written as "Mr. X," or the Federalist Papers had not appeared, or The New Yorker had not allowed Edward Conlon a pen name for his cop's diary, or if Dan Swanson hadn't been able to pose as James North to write Freedom Rising. In Zimbabwe and other repressive places, journalists who want to tell the truth and live sometimes have no option but to disguise their identity. (Note: I get off this bus long before we reach Jeff Gannon.)

Some blame the Beauchamp scandal on a breakdown in the fact-checking process, noting that his wife, a New Republic employee, helped fact-check his third piece for the magazine. This wasn't wise, of course, but the fact-checking process wasn't designed to root out liars. It was designed to catch honest mistakes by cooperative reporters. And it's next to worthless in verifying first-person accounts from war zones halfway around the world. Fact-checking creates a false sense of security for editors who rely on it to catch fabulists. When grilled about their sources, fabulists have constructed notes out of whole cloth, counterfeit documents (and in Stephen Glass' case, a Web site), staged photos, and persuaded friends to pose as sources on the phone to confirm elements of a story.

We can lament Beauchamp's sins and the long, wobbly path the New Republic walked in withdrawing its support of his work, but I hope that efforts to stop Beauchampery don't induce paralysis in editors, preventing them from taking chances on young voices, inexperienced voices, first-person voices, and (gulp!) maybe even sometimes pseudonymous voices. Journalism depends on kids who don't know any better than to tell the truth.

Addendum, Dec. 5: To the list of journalists who did brilliant work in their youth, a reader nominates David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, and Seymour Hersh. To the list of writers whose pseudonymous journalism deserves our praise, a reader adds Rev. Francis X. Murphy, who wrote as Xavier Rynne.

******

What great young journalist did I leave out of my list? What brilliant pseudonymous journalist deserves addition to the roster? Send nominations to . (E-mail may be quoted by name in "The Fray," Slate's readers' forum, in a future article, or elsewhere unless the writer stipulates otherwise. Permanent disclosure: Slate is owned by the Washington Post Co.)

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