The Child Porn Hoax

Once upon a time, there was a very serious reporter for a very serious newspaper, who decided to investigate one of society's scourges: the child pornography ring.

Two years after his exposés riveted the nation, it turned out the reporter had gone off the deep end. He'd paid his main source, become a webmaster at the very porn site he was investigating, lied and bullied anyone who questioned him, and had all but ostracized himself out of a reporting career.

But it wasn't just him. The witch-hunters, bogeyman blamers, and moral-panic enablers -- were everywhere. Our little reporter might have landed in deep shit, but the hysteria he milked became bigger than ever before.

Call him one of the most bizarre media offenders in the past two years of fear-mongering: Former New York Times and Portfolio reporter Kurt Eichenwald. He wrote two front-page stories on the subject of sex that won't be forgotten soon: Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World, and its followup, Child Sex Sites on the Run.

From the get-go, both stories were creepy: the softcore sexy descriptions, the "blame the internet" righteousness, the homophobic ick factor, and the unexplained implication that Eichenwald had looked at piles of this material himself, when by current law, he wouldn't have that right, no matter how well-intentioned his purpose!

Why did Kurt portray himself as an elite one-man rescue mission, and why was he so lurid in his crusade?

It didn't smell right.

Eichenwald's stories appeared just weeks after the Times editors confessed that their admired reporter, Judith Miller, was guilty of fraudulent writing about the war in Iraq -- promoting the specter of "weapons of mass destruction." Miller got canned, everyone's face was red for five minutes -- and then Eichenwald's "Cam Whore" story made its debut.

Kurt's source was the soon-to-be-notorious Justin Berry. Berry poured his heart out about his internet porn life, and was pictured in all his aspects. The photo essay opened with a headshot of a slim young man, oddly sultry. At the end of the story, Justin appeared in choir robes, singing gospel.

The mainstream press was in awe. One Houston reporter called it "remarkable".

At the ripe age of 13, Justin began attracting online pedophiles by performing on his webcam and  subsequently made hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next several years by performing online. In researching the story, Eichenwald met Justin and persuaded him to get off of drugs, to shut down the online business, and provide to the government names and credit card information on about 1,500 people who paid him to perform on his webcam.This is one of those stories that stays with you for a long time.

Reporter Kurt broke through the usual reporter's detachment to reveal that he'd reached out to this victim, helped him kick drugs, engineered an immunity deal, and worked to turn his life around so he could reach out to other kids in trouble. They went on Oprah together!

The smell was getting worse.

After Kurt's articles ran, Debbie Nathan, a reporter who's covered these subjects before, wrote an article for Salon about the ethical dilemmas for reporters and social scientists who want to get at the truth of "child porn" accusations. She asked why Kurt was allowed to look and analyze at this sort of media when no one else is allowed to, besides the cops.

Kurt blew a gasket. He contacted Salon, threatened to sue their ass off if they didn't take the story down, and demanded they issue a retraction/apology. Two of them, actually.

They acquiesced immediately.

Eichenwald then wrote a little note to Nathan:

It is already clear to me that you are the most unethical and sleazy "journalist" I have ever encountered, one who feels content misrepresenting her intentions and efforts and never asking a relevant question relating to a piece she is writing. What I cannot determine is if your inability to read and understand the words presented to you is the result of incompetence, stupidity, malevolence, or a combination of the three.

So let me be clear: Your piece in Salon was not only libelous, it was one of the worst reported, worst thought-through pieces of garbage I have ever seen passed off as journalism. You used your imagined realities to argue for a reinterpretation of the law that enters the realm of the grotesque.

Salon has elected to remove this piece of garbage from their site. However, if you should attempt to mischaracterize and misrepresent my actions again, in any other forum, let me assure you, I will take immediate and decisive legal action against you. And under no circumstances will I settle until you are financially wiped off the face of the earth. People like you are the maggots of journalism; you are everything that is wrong with this profession.

Clear enough?