Leave the New York Times Alone!
If I were more computer savvy and photogenic I might have been able to make a Youtube video. Instead you’ll just have to imagine me making a teary-faced appeal.
The New York times has spent 8 months researching “War Torn,” their hit piece investigative report on the returning war veterans’ penchant for violence and anti-social behavior.
Stories That Speak for Themselves - New York Times
It is an important and tragic subject to which an investigative team has devoted more than eight months of reporting, including research into local news reports and court records, and extensive interviews with some of the veterans, their families, victims families and law enforcement officials often sympathetic toward both the victims and their killers.
All this work by dedicated researchers was trashed in less than 48 hours by those undisciplined, raging bloggers who didn’t even use standard research techniques. They used the Internet (what the heck has anything on the Internet ever proved?). They used statistics and arithmetic to calculate ratios.
It’s just not fair! Leave them alone! It’s not their fault they can’t make it in this new Internetworked world!
But The Times made some missteps at the beginning of the series, and critics have pounced, accusing it of demonizing veterans and exaggerating the problem even as some mental health professionals have thanked the newspaper.
(h/t, whatever that is, to Tigerhawk, whoever he is. This Internet thing is so weird.)
