Saturday, February 26, 2011
On the cover of the Rolling Stone: Hastings aims at another General - the military fires back
Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone is at it again. Little punk Mikey, whose most recent claim to fame was writing a story on General Stanley McChrystal, decided to milk his 15 minutes of infamy, and has set his sights on yet another General, in this case LTG William Caldwell IV.
I really did try to read Mikey's latest breathless prose, but honestly? I just couldn't get past the first few paragraphs to know that, once again, this 'award-winning "journalist" is so intent on claiming another scalp, and yet more notoriety, he doesn't do his homework.[my emphasis added]
Fortunately, others in the military community did manage to read all of Hastings' latest, and they are firing back on all cylinders (or whatever the appropriate military metaphor is):...
You can refresh your memory here.
Today, from This Ain't Hell comes this:
TAH has much more, HERE, and they confirm what even this civilian writer knows: DO YOUR HOMEWORK before you rush to print with your 'scoop.' Oh, and a smidgen of commonsense doesn't hurt! As I have written before, everybody has a story to tell, and yes, every journalist loves a scoop, but as TAH quotes Holmes as saying:Michael Holmes vs. the Army and common sense
February 28th, 2011
What if I told you a story about a married US soldier in Afghanistan who repeatedly sneaked off of the base in his civilian clothes, accompanied by his girlfriend, a subordinate soldier. That they took their weapons with them, concealed in their clothing, and then willingly turned their weapons over to the owner of the restaurant where they dined. And then bragged about their exploits on Facebook and included pictures....
“Do I have an ax to grind? Yeah...
I am not one to yell conspiracy at every corner, (well, not much,) but once again, Hasting has proved an anti-military bias in the msm in his zeal to go with a story that shows our military in a bad light. However, as TAH has proved, if little punk Hastings had done even rudimentary research, he would have found that Holmes' story was not all as it seemed on first breathless blush.
It's called reSEARCH for a reason, Mikey. Hastings, in an interview I found somewhere when I was researching him (yes, I did research Hastings): "I am a journalist, not a stenographer." Seems to me there might be a stenographer's chair with his name on it about now.
Meanwhile, our military - our veterans - has done the research that Mikey Hastings did not bother to do. Get out your stenographer's notebook, Mikey, and take note. Better leave the real journalistic research to the big kids. THIS is how a story is really covered.