MEDIA

Honored Gitmo Story in Doubt

Reporters passed on National Magazine Award winner.

A major upset involving the National Magazine's Reporting Award winner has baffled critics, particularly Ad Week's Alex Koppelman. He says many journalists were certain that, of the five finalists in the category, Scott Horton's flawed "Guantánamo Suicides" story in Harper's was barely a contender. It turns out that many of them had passed on the opportunity to write the story themselves: When they were approached with explosive allegations that the U.S. military may have tortured three Guantánamo Bay detainees to death in 2006, they investigated the charges and found them lacking. "Ultimately I just didn't find the story credible," said Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News’ chief Pentagon correspondent. "I devoted a lot of time to it and my conclusion was that it just didn’t seem possible that that many people could have been involved in a conspiracy and to have [the killings] remain secret." The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh also took a pass on the story after looking into it.