APOLOGY NOT ACCEPTED

The Globe has apologized (sort of) and explained how they came to publish sexually explicit photos allegedly of American soldiers raping Iraqi women, but actually taken from a porn site.

You know what's offensive about this to me? As near as I can tell, what they think they've done wrong is to publish sexually explicit material. OK, that ain't good. Where's the apology for having been used by someone who was peddling a hoax about our troops? Where's the apology for even hinting, suggesting that might be possible without checking?

I keep seeing people saying they should have checked porn sites. Well, I don't know that if I'd been in their position I would have known how to do that (or wanted to.)

But I haven't seen anybody pick up on Jason Van Steenwyk's point that any vet in their newsroom could have told them almost immediately that the photos were fake just looking at the damn things.

Comments

[Gary and the Samoyeds]

"... any vet in their newsroom..."

Well, you're probably more likely to find a unicorn in a newsroom than a veteran any more.

[Ron Hardin]

I don't know if they owe an apology; in particular they will continue to put out whatever soap opera hook stories (eg. power gone bad) they come across; their attitude is unchanged on the matter. They're in business and it's not altruism. They only have a problem with putting breasts in the paper, for some other reason. Apparently porn does very well as news elsewhere in the world, I don't know the demographics but I imagine it attracts males, but this is Boston.

That a story is wrong is sort of a gotcha but doesn't go to the heart of the business they're in. It goes to the heart of the pretense, but that isn't real. So, in all honesty, they don't feel they owe an apology to the troops. Hey, they're a public figure, so they can't sue. If it had been a real private person, there'd be apologies all over the paper. Business is business.

[dauber]

Yeah, it's all well and good to say "it's just a business." But that isn't what they say as soon as they think their perogatives are threatened in the slightest, is it? They can't have it both ways.