Elspeth Reeve on Fact-Checking Her Husband’s ‘Baghdad Diarist’ Stories at The New Republic

Leon Neyfakh — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:51:02 -0400

In an interview Friday, U.S. Army private Scott Thomas Beauchamp's wife Elspeth Reeve, a former reporter-researcher at The New Republic, told the Observer that she was excited when someone at the magazine assigned her to fact-check one of her husband's dispatches from Iraq.

“I was like, 'Sweet! I can talk to Scott on TNR’s dime!'” Ms. Reeve said.

Ms. Reeve was working at TNR when Mr. Beauchamp--whose articles described soldiers killing dogs and mocking wounded civilians--was accused by critics of fabricating some of his material.

Mr. Foer has since written and published a 7,000-word piece retracting Mr. Beauchamp's articles for TNR, noting that assigning Ms. Reeve to fact-check her husband's work was a mistake.

Make sure to read tomorrow's print edition of the Observer for more on Mr. Foer's retraction, as well as more from Ms. Reeve on what went wrong with her husband's controversial articles.

Observer » Elspeth Reeve on Fact-Checking Her Husband’s ‘Baghdad Diarist’ Stories at The New Republic

Elspeth Reeve on Fact-Checking Her Husband’s ‘Baghdad Diarist’ Stories at The New Republic