A fictional op-ed?
In Sunday's Outlook section, the Chronicle ran an op-ed by John Eudy, described as a writer living in Houston:
SIXTY years ago today, a north Houston boy born in Madisonville, Texas, was crawling across the slate roof of the Reichstag building in the heart of Berlin. Nazi snipers tried to pick him off , before he reached his objective. Twenty of his own buddies were laying down enfilading fire that kept them from stopping PrivatePvt. R.C. Woods, Bobby to his friends, from reaching his goal.
A flag can was the symbolize all that can be is good and right about a nation, but in the case of Germany it had become the international sign of all that is evil and bloody about a nation: the Nazi flag.
Bobby Woods wanted that flag, and he wanted if off the towering flag pole as his personal statement that World War II was over. He wanted it as a souvenir that indicated democracy had triumphed over the pure evil of a nation and a people besotted and enthralled by their leader — Adolf Hitler.
Experts from the Antiques Road Show program tell me that this is no ordinary Nazi flag — of which there are hundreds of original examples. No! This was the ultimate symbol of the threat that almost conquered the world. It was a piece of cloth that waved and flapped over the government that spawned the worst regime of propaganda, genocide, mass murder and grandiose plans for a perverted world order ever seen by the modern world.
It didn't take long for the commenters at Lucianne to do their own fact-checking:
Funny I thought hostilities in all of Germany had ended May 8, 1945 and that the Russians had captured berlin alone on May 2, 1945
So how is this American soldier in the russian zone being shot at by nazi snipers on may 28, 1945 when the war was already over and it wasn't an american zone?
It sounds like there was ZERO fact checking done on this article
[snip]
http://www.euronet.nl/users/wilfried/ww2/ww2.htm
May 2, 1945 - Soviet forces occupy Berlin.
May 6, 1945 - Adm. Doenitz surrenders Germany to Brits and the Allies.
Can the Chronicle not be connected to the internet? Or is it simply too much trouble to fact-check before publishing a story?
via Florida Cracker who says, "You'll find this article right next to the one on high self-esteem being no substitute for study." And she's right!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 05/31/05 07:38 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Sphere | Comments (5)
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The Chronicle has posted a lengthy correction to that erroneous op-ed that ran on Sunday. I'm reproducing it in its entirety below, so that it won't scroll away behind some firewall at some point.
Linked by blogHOUSTON on 06/01/05.
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