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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:31 am
The Age’s Terry Lane falls (spectacularly) for the Jesse Macbeth hoax:
Why doesn’t the Government hold an inquiry into the video evidence of US Army Ranger Jessie Macbeth? Macbeth served in Iraq for 16 months and regrets that he was ever part of the invasion and occupation. You can see and hear Macbeth on Google Video – just search for Iraq war.
Even better: search for Jesse Macbeth (or “Jessie”; either will do). Served in Iraq for 16 months, did he? Try 43 daysof basic training in Georgia.
Macbeth is young and troubled. He speaks with a slight stutter. There is pain in his eyes as he describes the things he was ordered to do.
He was lying.
Macbeth is a little like Obersturmfuhrer Kurt Gerstein, the German who joined the SS to see for himself if the rumours of mass murder were true.
He’d be exactly like Obersturmfuhrer Kurt Gerstein if Obersturmfuhrer Kurt Gerstein was a super dooper überfaker.
This is what Macbeth says of his orders in Iraq: “Our job over there is to strike fear into the hearts of the Iraqis. You can do whatever it takes in the field to make them fear you. You can be brutal – the Geneva Convention doesn’t mean crap.”
Neither does Lane’s column. Might be a career-ender for the old chap.
Operation Iraqi Freedom is more like Operation Iraqi Slaughter. Macbeth describes going into a basement bomb shelter looking for insurgents.
Which he never did.
“We had to go in there and make sure everything was dead. So whether there were women and children, if they weren’t dead, we had to finish them off and drag their bodies out.”
Macbeth says of the people in makeshift bomb shelters: “Most of them were just families hiding down there but we were told that there were insurgents hiding down there, Saddam’s forces hiding down there. I remember going in there and smelling burnt flesh and hearing people crying and begging us to help them because they thought we were there for them. There were some that weren’t wounded very bad and we had to kill them.”
(Via readers Dale and Tony T.)
UPDATE. Lane in 2003:
Do you ever have the feeling that perhaps you have arrived on an alien planet where you don’t fully comprehend everything that is going on? Or that you are out of touch with the times?
Other previous Lane items here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
- A bit slow on the uptake, is The Age.Posted by Pixy Misa on 2006 07 30 at 01:02 AM • permalink
- Tim, Tim, Tim.
You must realise that Terry is speaking a “higher truth”. Macbeth is “fake but accurate”, and the idea of the new-Age-journalism is speak the TRUTH. So-called objective facts just get in the way.
I’d add <sarcasm> quotes, but I’m beginning to think that they’re not justified, this is actually the way many think. It’s straight out of Post-Modernist theory, as taught in virtually all humanities departments these days.
- Goebbels is alive and, unfortunately, well.
I think these clowns know exactly what they’re printing.
And I think they’re on the other side.
Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2006 07 30 at 01:16 AM • permalink
- Surely there is some kind of law against this kind of crap. Sedition, treason perhaps?
Put him on a plane to Iraq, kick him out into the street with no shirt and the star spangled banner tattooed across his chest and back.
Take fotos of the crowd tearing him to small pieces.
Posted by The_Wizard_of_WOZ on 2006 07 30 at 01:17 AM • permalink
- Someone oughta tell Terry about that ‘Google’ thingagummy.Posted by Islam/cancer-Chuck Norris/answer on 2006 07 30 at 01:27 AM • permalink
- Is he lazy or incompetent or both.Posted by Lefty Wobbling Right on 2006 07 30 at 01:28 AM • permalink
- Ohhh – he does know about it.
That’s sad.Posted by Islam/cancer-Chuck Norris/answer on 2006 07 30 at 01:28 AM • permalink
- I normally just lurk and browse on
forums like this,but this article got
me so enraged that I registered here
to comment.(Also fired off feedback
to the rag).What the @## is going on with the
Media, surely this clown can’t
possibly be so dumb.Is it really possible to search the
net without coming across the truth
about JM.It pisses me off so much.I scrape
a living(probably like most here) and
these pricks are paid to write absolute
shite with less research and truth seeking
than a 10 year would manage.The journalist is bad,but what the ####
does the editor do to earn his keep.Tim,this article has got to be widely
publicised.Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw Haw
had more scruples than this scumbag.
- “He was lying.”
Yeah, well, there’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face, as some other Macbeth used to say.
“Lies, lies, lies, lies.”
Alliteration- like it!
Posted by harry hutton on 2006 07 30 at 01:42 AM • permalink
- What do you have to do to get sacked from The Age?Posted by Lefty Wobbling Right on 2006 07 30 at 01:49 AM • permalink
- And I have it on good authority that the false face doth hide what the false heart doth know.Posted by harry hutton on 2006 07 30 at 01:55 AM • permalink
- “To show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy.” (Some Scottish king, whose name escapes me.)Posted by harry hutton on 2006 07 30 at 01:55 AM • permalink
- …the fiend that lies like truth.Posted by harry hutton on 2006 07 30 at 01:56 AM • permalink
- Thank God newspapers have editors so they don’t make mistakes like this.Posted by James Lindgren on 2006 07 30 at 02:01 AM • permalink
- I am sitting in a bar in Shanghai. A place where the media doesn’t report the truth because it isn’t allowed to.
In Australia the media doesn’t report the truth because it doesn’t want to.
Posted by Lefty Wobbling Right on 2006 07 30 at 02:04 AM • permalink
- Could someone slip Terry a copy of the Iowahawk column that Jesse “wrote”–just to see if it would fly under radar? (Maybe we could fax it to him from a Kinko’s in Texas…)Posted by Ed Driscoll on 2006 07 30 at 02:45 AM • permalink
- The left press are so desperate for storys about evil americans torturing and killing poor innocent Iraqis, that they dont care if there true or not,they decided long ago how they were going to portray this war,and this is just the latest instalment , the arrogance of the msm is just amazing they have given up the core dutys of journalism, for the lazy, the stupid and the unprofessional,they have become detatched from the real world and are paying the price in lost credibility and falling circulations, long may they continue to do so.
- Still,astounded the bastard could write this
story without finding out the truth about JM.It’s everywhere.Anyway hopefully the newsdesk
at the Age enjoyed a few links to Terry’s
search for truth,justice and the Anti-American
way.http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060526-093023-5234r.htm
- If Lane can Google for a lying video from a bogus soldier, he could of Googled for opposing stories on Macbeth.
But as several people have already pointed out, Lane didn’t want to. He already knew the truth…..and that wasn’t what he wanted to print.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 07 30 at 03:23 AM • permalink
- You just can’t google Jesse Macbeth without
words such as “fake” false” “imposter”etc
popping up.I know Terry is a moonbat,but surely he
is not blind and would have wanted to
be sure before making his claim.Then again maybe they really do believe
their own bullshit.Look how many of his ilk see Fisk as a
credible source of info,instead of a
bitter old bastard
- Does anyone have an email address for Terry Lane? I feel an urge to communicate with himPosted by KevGillett on 2006 07 30 at 03:47 AM • permalink
- You’re being a bit unfair on Terry. Surely most of the blame lies with the Bush Administration, Terry’s impoverished childhood and inability to read, John Howard’s size-ten jackboots, the still unexplained silencing of Margo Kingston, and a global conspiracy by an ethnic group that needs no introduction on these pages. And besides, anyone who’s ever been to Georgia knows that Ft Benning and Iraq are essentially interchangable. Oh, and please – for the last time – leave the real journalism to the big boys (they have a editorial review process – unlike blogs). I’d scored this one Terry 1 – Tim 0.
- KevG try tlane@theage.com.au – that’s the standard e-mail protocol for The Age.
I sent an e-mail to Lane as well as The Sunday Age editor, the opinion editor and Media Watch for good measure.
I’ve asked for a response, FWIW – doubt I’ll get it though.
— Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 07 30 at 03:54 AM • permalink
- This is a case study in how The Sunday Age deals with politically incorrect letters about Terry Lane.
The sequence goes:
Sunday 15/1: Terry Lane tries to attack Dick Cheney as a war profiteer but his evidence has long been 100% discredited.
Tues 17/1: Thanks to help from your posters on the subject, I provide The Age with chapter and verse on Cheney’s honesty and Lane’s mendacity, in the form of a Letter to Ed (Letter 1 below)
Sunday 22/1/06: The Age shortens my letter, headed “Cheney’s in the clear…”
but publishes it, with the effect that Lane is well protected from proper exposure.
The Age publishes a second letter immediately after mine from serial leftie letter writer Peter Kartsounis.. It reads, inter alia:
“…but if he (Cheney) is not…” (as if my prior demolition of Lane’s case had not occurred).
‘What is disturbing, if the allegations about Cheney are true, is how he could get away with it… .
‘Given Cheney’s role in building the momentum towards war, if the profiteering charges against him are accurate, then Americans (and people of other nations in the ‘Coalition of the Willing’) have been manipulated… Peter Kartsounis, Footscray.”
(My emphasis. I can’t help wondering why a leftie like Kartsounis would include the boldered “if/then” phrases unprompted; – or the Letters editor has himself made the insertions).
Now see Sunday Age letters of 29/1. I cop a serve from one writer as a Cheney ‘apologist or just plain gullible’, and in a second letter, we again get the “Even if (percypup) is correct {a fake but true instance fols}”, followed by more repetitions of the ‘Cheney as war profiteer’ smear.So to sum up:
a.Terry Lane lies or at least repeats third-party lies in the Sunday Age.
b.The Sunday Age is given chapter and verse rebutting the lies
c.The rebuttal is cut but The Age still has room for a longer ‘fake but true’ letter
d.Terry Lane’s column reappears but strangely, he makes no reference to his errors/defamations of the previous week.
e.The following week I am abused in one letter as a gullible apologist, and in another on fake-but-true grounds. The original lies about Cheney being a Halliburton shareholder are resurrected.
f.In the Sunday Age of Feb 5, Lane has the gall to renew his attack on Cheney with yet more false material. I send Letter 2 to The Age attempting to correct Lane. The Age declines to publish this letter, notwithstanding its own correction policy guidelines published in every issue.
g.As for Lane’s howlers in the Sunday Age today, how interesting it will be to see how the Sunday Age handles the affair next week!Letter 1:
In your issue of Sunday 15/1, Terry Lane in his column p14 writes:
“At the time of the invasion,(US Vice President Dick) Cheney held 433,000 Halliburton stock options worth $US241,498. Today they are worth $US8 million. Pin money for Cheney, but still worth a small war. And a war on Iran should double that.”
The various accusations that Cheney as Vice-President has personally profited from his Halliburton connections have been investigated and found to be false by the FactCheck.org staff of the Annenburg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
(see http://www.factcheck.org/article261.html).
The staff specifically researched the stock options issue and verified that Cheney and his wife Lynne, by legal agreement, assigned any and all profits from their stock options to several charities, namely a university, a medical faculty and a charity aiding low-income students.
Factcheck.org says this agreement constitutes a ‘significant financial sacrifice’ by the Cheneys. Terry Lane should apologise to them for his gross abuse.
Yours faithfully etcLetter 2 – rejected for publication:
Dear Sir,
Terry Lane (Sunday Age Feb 5) says “The vice-president of the US, Dick Cheney, gets to meddle in our politics via donations made by Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root ($27,000 to the ALP and $17,000 to the Tories)…”
The facts are that Cheney resigned from Halliburton in September 1999
before he became vice-president in 2000. He has had no financial interest in Halliburton since late 1999, other than some deferred salary arrangements and some options where he has legally assigned any profits to charity.
Lane’s suggestion that he is meddling in our politics via Halliburton is farcical.
Yours etc
- How about we petition to get Andrew Bolt to head Media Watch- get Tim Blair to head the 7.30 Report and get Janet Albrechtsen to do Lateline + Catriona Rowntree to do Foreign Correspondent?? That would be absolutely marvellous!Posted by Wylie Wilde on 2006 07 30 at 04:19 AM • permalink
- o/t new news? Mel Gibson,dubbed Mad Mel by the U.S. has been accused (charged?) with hurling ANTI SEMITIC abuse at cops who were attempting to take him into custody.He was apprehended drink driving well over the limit.Attempts by other personnel in the Highway Patrol to hush it all up have foundered.
Greenpeace “activists” apprehended in hot pursuit of bottom trawlers -and arrested.
- It’s against the law to insult the police, now? That is news!
I read the charge as DUI. Mel was admittedly sh*t-faced. Not in his right mind. Doubtful that he even remembers what he said. Still, it’s disturbing. Even if money can’t buy happiness, it could buy therapy.
Posted by nofixedabode on 2006 07 30 at 06:40 AM • permalink
- Did anyone notice that The Age headline was PERFECT? “Turning a blind eye to the real horrors”.
They’d rather report on fake US atrocities than real ones perpetrated by Muslims. Speaks volumes.Posted by Jim,MtnViewCA,USA on 2006 07 30 at 06:49 AM • permalink
- crap
I promise to use the Preview button in future (“That’s what it’s there for”)Posted by Jim,MtnViewCA,USA on 2006 07 30 at 06:51 AM • permalink
- dang.Posted by Jim,MtnViewCA,USA on 2006 07 30 at 06:54 AM • permalink
- I followed a couple of those Lane quotes and there is a quote from me! I mention it because below that there’s another quote from me that leads to the most brilliant and magical thing I’ve ever read in my life, the endorsment of Dennis Kucinich by ‘Grandfather Twilight’. I had totaly forgotten about this, and it is absolute comedy gold, you have to read it, no, seriously, it’s insane.
GT: There is a brave, truth-telling man from Ohio. His name is Dennis Kucinich, a Congressman who is running for President. As you know, I tend to be a calm old man, but when I heard Dennis speak, I got excited. He plans to create a Department of Peace. At last! Why has no one done it before? This is exactly how a wise President should think, what a good President should do!
(GT thumped a gentle fist on the table.)
BHB: Yes! I agree.
Whoa there grandpa! Let’s not get violent!
Best.
Endorsement.
Ever!
- Lets see the SOB report this “real horror”.
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/
news/tm_objectid=17431866&method
=full&siteid=62484&headline=hanged-
from-a-crane-aged-16–name_page.htmlLong, page-destroying url has been edited. Copy and paste the segments into your address bar if you want to read it. M2500, learn to make a link. One more mess up like this and I will delete your comment. The Management.
- o/t Tezza’s old friends the ABC’S Inciters today -all in left field,Cassidy,Toohey,Jim Middletum (Karen’s dad?) and Mega -Phat Phil’s friend.Kelly from the Oz,Wayne Swan from ALP.Swan was so keen to impress Cassidy that he called him Barry TWENTY ONE times.Ten times would of been enough to impress us.
They discussed the ALP’S Uranium policy and um uranium generally.They rustled up a bike shop owner who opposes uranium.
The four commenters then discussed uranium and Labor v Greens(yawn).Howard v Costello.
Talking Pics showed antiJewish,anti Condi,anti Howard, anti Beazley (for his stance on uranium) and anti Costello.
A slight diversion to swipe at Campbell and his orange bellied parrot, a flashback to children in the water for Toohey,a shot of the infamous screwdriver attack on the P.M.
Toohey demanded that we take our troops out of Afghanistan -then they pro mo’d “Inside Business” -with somebody filling in for Kohler.. topic
-Uranium Mining…
- Great. Now papers all over the world are going to pick up the Macbeth story, all citing Lane’s column. The left wing noise machine in operation folks—they just repeat the same (debunked) lies over and over until the debunkers get tired of correcting them. Then they run with the lie and make it “truth”.Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 07 30 at 08:50 AM • permalink
- I googled jesse mcbeth and the first 20 (I didnt look further)sites were blogs discrediting him. So if terrys readers DO follow his advise and google they will get a surprise! Do keep us updated on this, Tim, I’d be interested in if there is a correction about a hoax that was discredited months ago.
- Stop the bolding!</b>Posted by G Hamid USA on 2006 07 30 at 09:31 AM • permalink
- Did it stop?Posted by G Hamid USA on 2006 07 30 at 09:31 AM • permalink
- <b></b>Well, I tried.Posted by G Hamid USA on 2006 07 30 at 09:33 AM • permalink
- You’d think that Jessie Macbeth’s exposure as a clumsy fraud would have reached all corners of the Media by now, including The Age, but you’d be wrong. The America-bashing was just too tempting to pass up, I suppose.
Really, I’m boggled.
What other old, moldering hoaxes will The Age publish next?
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 07 30 at 09:58 AM • permalink
- #40: “Mel was admittedly sh*t-faced. Not in his right mind.”
Excessive alcohol lowers your inhibitions. What you do/say when you’re drunk is your true nature coming out.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a woman who’s been beaten up by her “man” tell me, “But he’s so sweet when he’s sober.” No, he’s a wife-beating bastard when he’s sober, too – he just hides it better.
It pains me to say it – he’s made some great movies – but same with Mel. What he says when he’s drunk is his true self coming out.
Appears all that money can’t buy decency either. 🙁
Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2006 07 30 at 10:53 AM • permalink
- MR. 4500 — If you can’t post a link DON’T POST A LINK.Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 07 30 at 11:07 AM • permalink
- Somebody broke the page, but if anybody can wade through the lost boldings and vanished post numbers, try this:
Wannabes and liars are not confined to the USA, check out this site:
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 07 30 at 12:52 PM • permalink
- Maybe we could have an outbreak of jackalopes in Australia, and the poor drop bears are getting stuck on the antlers…Posted by The_Wizard_of_WOZ on 2006 07 30 at 01:32 PM • permalink
- yeah, I tried multiple times to turn it off too.
“how to turn off bold/italic/strike etc when you screw up” would make a terrific addition to the FAQPosted by Jim,MtnViewCA,USA on 2006 07 30 at 01:45 PM • permalink
- You can’t turn it off, it’s a thing having to do with the current Expression Engine code and the site template. I’ll see what I can do in about the template, but in the meantime only I can fix bad code in the comments—please refrain from trying to fix it yourselves, you don’t have the tools.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 07 30 at 01:53 PM • permalink
- The FAQ has been updated.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 07 30 at 02:02 PM • permalink
- Sorry, Andrea, I didn’t mean to start a bolding jihad. Sadly, I forgot what the road to hell is paved with.Posted by G Hamid USA on 2006 07 30 at 04:35 PM • permalink
- LANE WATCH:
It’s been nearly 24 hours now. Any sign of a correction/retraction/apology/suicide from Lane yet?Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2006 07 30 at 04:41 PM • permalink
- This is so unbelievably lame and pathetic that I can’t do anything but laugh. (I did manage to dash off a few well chosen words to The Age, however.)Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 07 30 at 04:41 PM • permalink
- Lane’s piece is still there. They haven’t even fixed the Jesse Macbeth parts. I refreshed my browzer to make sure. And there’s no sign of a correction.Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2006 07 30 at 05:04 PM • permalink
- I just logged on to theage.com.au. It’s still there.Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 07 30 at 05:06 PM • permalink
HOOK, LANE AND SINKER
Shouldn’t that be hook, Lane and stinker?
Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2006 07 30 at 06:42 PM • permalink
You can get rid of a wart by rubbing it with stump water during a full moon!
Are you calling Huck Finn a liar?
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 07 30 at 07:43 PM • permalink
- Check out some of the online comment threads over at The Age, especially the ones about Australian subservience to the US…
Low self-esteem and proud of it, man…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 07 30 at 07:43 PM • permalink
- I’ll tell you one thing they DID do to the article (correct me if I’m wrong—could be my workplace firewall).
This AM, when I first soiled my retina with Lane’s article (BTW, I have heard him say to John Thaine many times he uses a Remington typewriter—not a computer—but this may be apocryphal) the lower left of the page included a small image map reading, humorously, IMO: “TOOL sponsored by…” and an image of Telstra’s Bigpond “flushing toilet” logo.
I just looked (rather, focussed my mouse) on that area just to the left of the Age’s standard envelope/print/font size icons at the bottom of the article.
On my screen, the image map is still there, but has been masked white. If I right-click, “open in new window” it still leads to a BigPond promo.
Could someone else confirm this for me?
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 07 30 at 11:09 PM • permalink
- Lessee:
100,000 dead in Iraq
Plastic turkey
Bush AWOL from TANG
Koran flushing
McBeth was a combat vetHell, I can’t even remember them all. When exactly does the self proclaimed “compassionate” side of the spectrum start telling the truth?
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 07 31 at 12:35 AM • permalink
- Oh yeah, Valerie Plame was a NOC list agent while stationed in Washington DC for 5 yeats with infant twins. Forgot about that whopper.Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 07 31 at 12:41 AM • permalink
- An e-mail in response to my indignant e-mail:
Hi Nora,
Thank you for contacting The Age.
I have included your comments in our feedback report.
This will be seen by editorial staff and senior management.Regards,
Nicole
THE AGE
Reader Services
Ph: 03 9604 1490
Fax: 03 9601 2773
nbrooks@theage.com.auPosted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 07 31 at 01:57 AM • permalink
- STOP PRESS!
Media Watch tonight, and you just won’t believe this, somehow failed to mention the vicious Terry Lane hoax on readers of The Sunday Age. Instead, Media Watch led off with various items demonstrating that local Muslim clerics are being monstered by the Murdoch press, and a murdered suburban Melbourne lawyer was monstered by the Herald Sun, and some obscure guff about the rights and wrongs of some sort of advertising on an ABC online site.
Never mind, readers, Media Watch is bound to monster Terry Lane next week.
- I don’t think Media Watch’s turnaround is quite that quick. Give them another week.Posted by Captain Wacky on 2006 07 31 at 08:13 AM • permalink
- Yes, Captain Whacky; by next week Lane’s lies will be old news and Media Watch will have “moved on”.Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 07 31 at 08:46 AM • permalink
- Crikey, on the other hand – which fancies itself is the watchdog of the evil media oligopoly – has no excuse for its failure to mention the matter today. And the article is still intact on The Age website.Posted by Captain Wacky on 2006 07 31 at 08:47 AM • permalink
- 10.50pm and it’s still up.
I guess we could call this LaneWatch.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 07 31 at 08:52 AM • permalink
- Honestly, we should petition for Andrew Bolt to head Media Watch. The screams from the lefties will be priceless.Posted by Wylie Wilde on 2006 07 31 at 11:19 AM • permalink
- Guys, I send this to Crikey just now – I am a subscriber:
lets see if Crikey runs something today.cmon guys, terry lane writes a column last sunday monstering the US as vile killers of women and kids on the basis of a
Jesse Macbeth ex-Ranger video, and Jesse Macbeth is a total fraud, and The Age has neither corrected nor taken down the piece from its website. Media Watch ignored it last night.
can the leftoids really lie like this and be immune from criticism? If it was, say, Andrew Bolt who wrote a piece based on a rightist fraud and liar, saying that Beazley murdered babies, you and I know the media would run riot about it.
cmon, start behaving like journalists.
- Nothing on the letter page, either. I guess no one wrote to complain…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 08 01 at 12:12 AM • permalink
- Link doesn’t work.
The article in summary reads:
Highly-respected ABC broadcaster and newspaper columnist Terry Lane calls it an “ignominious end” to a long career in journalism…Lane fell prey to the Jesse Macbeth hoax… But there are few leftie scalps that right-wing Australian commentators like Tim Blair – who’s lapping it up this morning – would be happier to claim.
As Lane told Crikey this morning, he could have relied on facts and figures from Amnesty International or the BBC to make his case. But instead, he cited video evidence in which a so-called US Ranger called Jesse Macbeth claimed that his job was “to strike fear into the hearts of the Iraqis”. …
Sunday Age editor Peter Fray told Crikey today he is “currently reviewing our fact-checking measures in the light of this column”. But “regrettable as this error is, I am currently of the view that our practices at the Sunday Age are not deeply flawed,” says Fray, who adds that “we will obviously be apologising to our readers and setting the record straight”.
Lane’s mea culpa reads, summarised:There are three unforgivable sins in journalism: plagiarism, fabrication and failing to check the facts. I am guilty of the last.
… My attention was drawn to what looked like a professionally packaged documentary video in which “US Ranger” (I now know that that is bogus) Jesse Macbeth recounts his experiences …
I was completely taken in by his fake sincerity. That, I suppose, could be excusable for any person with no responsibility to check bona fides, but in my case I fell for it because I wanted to believe it. That is inexcusable. …I offered my resignation to Peter Fray, the editor of The Sunday Age. I have embarrassed the newspaper for which I have written since the first issue which makes me ashamed.
There are no excuses. No extenuating circumstances. Opinion writers are not expected to be objective and disinterested but that doesn’t give licence to be indifferent to facts. I should have checked.
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