Mizzou Alum's Work Retracted - Lies!

Posted by moomizzou 12/05/2007 5:42 PM

Tags: report, blogger, journalism, jschool, plagiarism

(Shattered Glass Part II, anyone?)

Mizzou Alum Scott Beauchamp's essays have been nixed by the New Republic, after the magazine checked up on his facts about Army tales from Iraq.

The New Republic is retracting his essays, not necessarily saying he lied, but not trusting he didn't, either. His wife, Elspeth Reeve, was a Jschool Alum and the one who got him the job for writing for TNR in the first place. Bloggers and reporters say she knew he was fudging facts, but let him go ahead with it.

Also... following the investigation - Reeve's previous "A" in Fundamentals of Journalism J1100 has been revoked. She will have to return to Columbia to retake the class if she wants to keep his diploma.

(Kidding 'bout that last part.)

Hmmm... this is the second ethical dilemma in the JSchool in the past month. John Merrill was cut as a columnist for the Missourian in November when he admitted to plagiarism (stealing shit from a Maneater reporter, of all things). Now it's picking liars as field reporters. Maybe if Beauchamp had gone to the Jschool, things would have been different.

Comments

Anonymous says,

Beauchamp was never a student of the School of Journalism. From what I remember, he was an English major or something to that effect. Posted 12/05/2007 6:19 PMReply

moomizzou says,

Thanks for the correction :-) Posted 12/06/2007 07:27 AMReply

Anonymous says,

Equating Merrill's 'mistake', and the string of mistakes associated with the Beauchamp episode is silly, in the later there are some pretty heinous lapses of judgment among three people (Author, �fact checker� and the EDITOR) at a minimum, and outright unethical behavior as a possibility.

I find it VERY interesting that this latest issue has gone unreported by the Missourian, while the Merrill issue has been all over the place. Could it be they don�t like Merrill�s politics? Posted 12/06/2007 12:29 PMReply

moomizzou says,

Unethical = unethical.

But regardless... the Missourian doesn't pick up on a lot of stuff. It's a matter of how inspired the student reporters are to "know" the news. Posted 12/07/2007 2:58 PMReply

Anonymous says,

Despite the protestations of 4 faculty members who laid out the issue, it remains unclear the inappropriateness of Merril's action. The same can not be said of the other action.

I seriously suggest that people just don't like Merrill's politics (which might include me), and thus the disproportionate "calling out". Posted 12/11/2007 1:10 PMReply