Email oddity

In what I consider a strange development, I received an email purporting to be from Brian Thevenot (whose bad reporting and failure to admit mistakes I heavily criticized in at least three posts). In the email, he admits his "own mistake," and argues that I didn't "expose" him because he already "exposed" himself. While I'm not sure what to make of this, I updated this post accordingly.

Mr. Thevenot's admission of his "own mistake" came as news to me, because I had not seen any clear previous admission by him, nor had I seen anything confirming that he exposed himself, as he says. I know people tend not to scroll down to read updates, so here's the text of the email:

From: "Sports laptop" (xxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.net)
To: escheie@yahoo.com
Subject: Classical Values
Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2005 02:47:22 -0500
From Brian Thevenot:
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?
xxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.com
And my reply:
I'll note your response in an update to my post, but I reread the last report carefully and it's not clear to me where you admitted your own mistake or exposed yourself.

It wasn't my goal to expose you, as if course you wrote the story. Rather, my complaint was that you were not admitting your own role or own mistake, nor had you issued a retraction or correction. Now that you have (at least in this email), I'll certainly note it.

If I am missing something or there is something more recent, please let me know.

Eric Scheie

If there is any admission that I have missed, I will certainly note it, along with my apologies to Mr. Thevenot. In any event, I was glad to see that he's at least admitting his mistake now.

He is, isn't he?

It's strange, but the more I thought it over, the more I wondered whether the email was in fact sent to me by Brian Thevenot. I have to assume in good faith that it was, but out of curiosity I decided to run the email's originating IP number -- 12.16.159.38 -- through arin.net. To my surprise, it appeared to be the same as the IP of a hotel in San Diego, California:

OrgName: STARWOOD HOTELS
OrgID: STARW-29
Address: 701 A ST
City: SAN DIEGO
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 92101
Country: US

NetRange: 12.16.158.0 - 12.16.159.255
CIDR: 12.16.158.0/23
NetName: STARWOOD43-158
NetHandle: NET-12-16-158-0-1
Parent: NET-12-0-0-0-1
NetType: Reassigned
Comment:
RegDate: 2005-03-17
Updated: 2005-03-17

OrgTechHandle: BH1033-ARIN
OrgTechName: Hassett, Buddy
OrgTechPhone: +1-914-640-8477
OrgTechEmail: xxxxx.xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.com

This raised my suspicions, because Brian Thevenot is a major reporter for the Times Picayune, who has claimed what's almost a proprietary interest in the story:
...we've cranked out better journalism in the last two weeks than we have the last two years, and we're getting stronger every day. And Katrina remains our story to own, and we mean to own it.
Thus, I'm scratching my head over email appearing to originate from a San Diego hotel. While there's still lots of reporting to be done in New Orleans, it's certainly possible that Mr. Thevenot was in San Diego on October 1, and I suppose it's possible that his email was routed through a San Diego hotel IP. (After all, I am not much of a geek.)

As of this morning, I haven't heard back from Mr. Thevenot.

I hate to sound so skeptical, but something just looks odd about this.

Sheesh.

I can't assume anything anymore.

UPDATE: In the interest of being thorough, I also forwarded a copy of my reply to Mr. Thevenot at xxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.com (one of the email addresses listed in the above email -- and the same one provided by the AJR.)

MORE: As a courtesy to Mr. Thevenot, the email identifiers have been deleted.

UPDATE: Brian Thevenot appears to have been in New Orleans this past weekend and not in San Diego. (No doubt there is some other explanation for the San Diego IPs on the email.)

To reiterate a bit, what most bothers me in this matter are the following:

  • I linked to Mr. Thevenot's original report under the assumption it was correct, and I have seen no public retraction or correction -- by him -- in any version of that report that I can find.
  • Worst of all is that the "Apocalypse in New Orleans" piece -- still prominently on display at AJR's web site -- fails utterly to dispel the rumors and unfounded reports, and contains no correction or retraction at all -- neither by Mr. Thevenot nor the Times-Picayune.
  • I think this touches on a key difference between the blogosphere and the print media. If I said something in a blog post that turned out not to be true or quoted people whose stories turned out to be wrong, I'd correct myself by pointing out the specific error in the place where I made it.

    Maybe I'm missing something, but this does not strike me as a retraction:

    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.
    There's nothing there to indicate that any specific story -- or any particular writer -- was incorrect.

    Much less where.

    posted by Eric on 10.03.05 at 08:54 AM





    TrackBack

    TrackBack URL for this entry:
    http://classicalvalues.com/cgi-bin/pings.cgi/2846






    Comments

    How interesting! (If the e-mail really is from Thevenot, that is.)

    I do not consider his "follow-up" a proper debunking of his "own myth," especially when you consider the Sept. 27 Times-Picayune editorial "OUR OPINIONS: Hurricane-force rumors" that called for Compass and Nagin to "set the record straight."

    Everyone in south Louisiana --- in the entire country --- should feel a tremendous sense of relief that New Orleans didn't descend into some kind of post-apocolyptic orgy of violence following Katrina. But that doesn't mean damage wasn't done. Rumors, widely reported as fact, can live on even after they are debunked, and the tales from the Dome and the Convention Center are more compelling than most urban myths.

    These frightening stories can continue to hurt us by discouraging people from returning to this region and by marring New Orleans' image with tourists. Rumors of violence may have hampered rescue efforts in some cases. We can't afford to allow them to hamper our recovery. It's bad enough that the Superdome will be associated with squalor and misery; far worse to have it associated with murder and mayhem.

    It's understandable that in the tense and fractured days after Katrina frightened people reported rumor as fact and soldiers, police and even elected officials believed what they heard and passed it on. In the hell that descended after Katrina, almost anything, no matter how horrific, seemed possible.

    But now that we know better, it's essential that people like Mayor Nagin and Superintendent Compass set the record straight, just as forcefully. That might mean saying, "I spoke too soon'' or even, "I exaggerated.''

    If the Times-Picayune held itself to the same standard it holds Compass and Nagin, Thevenot's debunking would have included a forceful statement about his part in passing off rumor and hearsay as fact.

    It's understandable that reporting mistakes might be made during crisis situations. However, once the floodwaters recede, a journalist should make every attempt to "set the record straight," rather than point fingers at field combatants who repeated what they heard from their men.

    On this issue, Compass and Nagin make rather convenient scapegoats.

    Bonnie Wren   ·  October 3, 2005 10:34 AM

    Thanks, Bonnie. I agree with you. BTW, the email is genuine, and the San Diego IP address does not mean it was sent from San Diego.

    Eric Scheie   ·  October 3, 2005 10:36 PM


    December 2006
    Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
              1 2
    3 4 5 6 7 8 9
    10 11 12 13 14 15 16
    17 18 19 20 21 22 23
    24 25 26 27 28 29 30
    31            

    ANCIENT (AND MODERN)
    WORLD-WIDE CALENDAR


    Search the Site


    E-mail




    Classics To Go

    Classical Values PDA Link



    Archives




    Recent Entries



    Links



    Site Credits