New Yorker Under Siege – Sued for $10 million

The story has everything: murder, tribal warfare, a famous writer, and a lawsuit involving him and one of the world’s most prestigious magazines. So why are so few media watchers paying attention to the suit recently brought against Pulitzer winner Jared Diamond and the New Yorker? At the very least, it raises questions about how this particular article was cleared by the magazine’s venerable fact-checking department.

First, some background. The $10-million defamation suit was filed in April on behalf of two men in New Guinea, Henep Isum Mandingo and Hup Daniel Wemp. They were the focus of an April 2008 New Yorker article entitled “Annals of Anthropology: Vengeance Is Ours: What can tribal societies tell us about our need to get even?” It was written by UCLA geography professor Jared Diamond, who won the Pulitzer for his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. The story was removed from the free section of the magazine’s Web site months before the suit was filed, but here’s a relevant passage:

In 1992, when Daniel Wemp was about twenty-two years old, his beloved paternal uncle Soll was killed in a battle against the neighboring Ombal clan… And Soll had been very good to Daniel, who recalled him as a tall and handsome man, destined to become a leader. Soll’s death demanded vengeance… As it turned out, it took three years, twenty-nine more killings, and the sacrifice of three hundred pigs before Daniel succeeded in discharging this responsibility.

Aside from its claims of mass murder, the story also reported that Mandingo, the main target of Wemp’s vengeance, was confined to a wheelchair as a result of an attack. The story was based on Diamond’s detailed notes of a conversation between him and Wemp. The two met years ago in New Guinea when Wemp worked as Diamond’s driver during a bird research trip.

When the lawsuit was filed late last month, the Associated Press and New York Post picked up the story, but since then it has generated little interest among media reporters. However, one press watchdog dedicated time and resources to untangle the allegations.

The Art Science Research Laboratory, which is run by Rhonda Roland Shearer, operates StinkyJournalism.org. It published a lengthy and detailed examination of the New Yorker story around the same time the lawsuit was filed. (Disclosure: Shearer’s site interviewed me when my book, Regret The Error, came out in 2007 and she hosted a reception for me at her offices. We have kept in touch since then but have never worked together.)

But let’s set aside the lawsuit for a moment and rewind to when the magazine was checking the story. It had what was basically a single-source story, and it wasn’t able to check the article with the source, Daniel Wemp. The story itself also contained some very serious criminal allegations against the source in question. The dilemma is obvious: should you publish without getting some level of confirmation from the source or another party with specific knowledge of the events in question?http://www.cjr.org/regret_the_error/new_yorker_under_siege.php?page=all