How interesting!
Eric Scheie of Classical Values received an e-mail from someone claiming to be Brian Thevenot of the New Orleans Times Picayune.
Did you somehow miss the portion of the follow-up story in which I debunked my own myth about the 40 bodies in the freezer? Did you not bother to read the whole story? I admitted my own mistake, under my own byline, and in again in interviews with news stations and newspapers that interviewed me about myths at the Dome and Convention Center. And now you purport to expose me after I exposed myself?
Mr. Scheie is unsure as to whether or not this e-mail really is from Mr. Thevenot. But if it is, I assume the writer refers to this story, printed on Sept. 26.
One widely circulated tale, told to The Times-Picayune by a slew of evacuees and two Arkansas National Guardsmen, held that “30 or 40 bodies” were stored in a Convention Center freezer. But a formal Arkansas Guard review of the matter later found that no soldier had actually seen the corpses, and that the information came from rumors in the food line for military, police and rescue workers in front of Harrah’s New Orleans Casino, said Edwards, who conducted the review.
[SNIP]
But other accusations that have gained wide currency are more demonstrably false. For instance, no one found the body of a girl – whose age was estimated at anywhere from 7 to 13 – who, according to multiple reports, was raped and killed with a knife to the throat at the Convention Center.
Many evacuees at the Convention Center the morning of Sept. 3 treated the story as gospel, and ticked off further atrocities: a baby trampled to death, multiple child rapes.
Salvatore Hall, standing on the corner of Julia Street and Convention Center Boulevard that day, just before the evacuation, said, “They raped and killed a 10-year-old in the bathroom.”
Neither he nor the many people around him who corroborated the killing had seen it themselves.
“Rumors of deaths greatly exaggerated, Widely reported attacks false or unsubstantiated, 6 bodies found at Dome; 4 at Convention Center,” by Brian Thevenot and contributing taff writers Jeff Duncan and Gwen Filosa, Times-Picayune, Sept. 26. 2005.
Mr. Thevenot’s original “Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention Center” story did not include a statement that needed to be there, a statement he belatedly includes in his follow-up: “Neither he nor the many people around him who corroborated the killing had seen it themselves.”
At least one other reporter managed to stick in a “lacks independent verification” disclaimer during the public insanity that followed Katrina. Mr. Thevenot could have easily done the same.
Yet Mr. Thevenot and the Times-Picayune could be forgiven for this error, if only they hadn’t immediately blasted Compass and Nagin for spreading false rumors. Compass and Nagin, whatever their faults, were in the trenches, so to speak. They repeated what their men, also in the trenches, told them.
The Times-Picayune‘s subscribers pay their newspaper to fact-check and verify rumors before they are printed as fact.
UPDATE:
Mr. Scheie has written to Mr. Thevenot to determine if the e-mail really was from him.
I called the San Diego hotel referenced in the IP lookup for “Thevenot’s” e-mail. I thought hotel management concerns for privacy would prevent front desk staff from giving me any information, but they were willing to look up Brian Thevenot for Oct. 1.
I had trouble communicating the spelling, but she seemed to get it finally and said there was no Brian Thevenot staying there on Oct. 1.