Posted without comment:
From W. Thomas Smith Jr.: “After much reflection and consideration, I am withdrawing from my professional relationship as a regular freelancer with National Review Online.”
Kathryn Jean Lopez weighs in:
I apologize to all of our readers. We should have required Smith to clearly source all of his original reporting from Lebanon. Smith let himself become susceptible to spin by those taking him around Lebanon, so his reporting from there should be read with that knowledge. (We are attaching this note to all his Lebanon reporting.) This was an editing failure as much as it was a reporting failure. We let him down, and we let you down, and we’re taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Smith has, on his own, decided that he will no longer write for NRO. We respect his decision.
