Michael Schwirtz Still Sucks at his Job

BOULDER, Colorado -- Some things really get my dander up, and one of them is lazy, stupid reporting. This latest bit of tripe from the New York Times describes a recent report by Human Rights Watch on the growth of violence in the Russian republic of Ingushetia, a region bordering Chechnya. The article was written by one of the Times' resident non-reporters in Moscow, Michael Schwirtz.

The first thing I have to take issue with is that this piece has no corroborating sources. All he did was go to the press conference and quote the one of the report's researchers and an official from the Ingushetian government.

This is most galling to me because several of my colleagues are engaged in research about the diffusion of violence across the North Caucasus region. No sensible person would ever claim that Ingushetia has "long been considered a relatively peaceful enclave in the North Caucasus"; violence has been growing there since the second Chechen War broke out in 1999, and has reached a fever pitch over the past three years. The center of insurgent violence has in fact been moving westward out of Chechnya and into Ingushetia over the past several years. So any claims that the findings of this report are new are either uninformed or disingenuous.

If you would like to find some real information about the distribution of violence in the North Caucasus, look at the research of Jason Lyall from Princeton or my advisor at the University of Colorado, John O'Loughlin. Don't read this garbage.