Yesterday the Army released the findings of a seven-month investigation into a growing scandal surrounding Arlington National Cemetery and widespread instances of mismarked graves. Two senior Army officers were forced out in the wake of the findings, and questions continue to linger about the management of the hallowed cemetery.
For most mainstream news consumers, the findings may have come as a shock. But not for longtime readers of Salon, where reporter Mark Benjamin has owned the Arlington story for years now, uncovering a string of alarming scoops; scoops that the Beltway press has ignored.
So I thought it was shabby of the WSJ and the NYT, just to name two, to report on the Army's Arlington findings without acknowledging the work of Salon's Benjamin, who single-handedly kept this story alive. That would have been the gracious and professional thing for the dailies to do.
To its credit, that's what today's WashPost did:
The cemetery probe came after complaints from family members and a series of reports at Salon.com detailing many of the stark blunders the Army found.
UPDATED: According to a tweet from Salon's editor Joan Walsh, Benjamin helped all three networks news teams with their Arlington reporting. Yet none of them credited him.