Now, we didn't pick up on Debbie Nathan's story last week either, because her piece didn't name a dollar figure. So we thought: Paypal? Porn sites? Okay, so in the course of learning stuff for his story about child pornography on the internet, or in advance of working on the story, he sent $19.99 to a bunch of porn sites. Go figure. (Please. What American hasn't Paypaled money to a porn site, after all?)

Now the Times coughs up a dollar figure for this transaction: $1100. This comes from the same people who are "familiar" with the sealed documents. So, that could be true!

And that's more money. That's interesting!

But really there's another reason we can't stand writing about Kurt Eichenwald, and we're probably not alone. It's the people who email us. Like so:

On 8/3/07, Mike Murphy wrote:

Hey, if you folks are bored with dumping on Eichenwald, let me know. Nothing from you guys all week, even though there was a lot to snark about. Here is the latest from those in the know:
http://www.generationq.net/articles/Justin-Berry-Sex-Lies-and-Videotape.html

Which is too bad. The stuff that's verifiably true IS interesting! The stuff that's not is just scary.

And our correspondent Mike Murphy, who seems like a very nice guy, by the way, whatever his real name is, is very busy disseminating stuff about Eichenwald: he hits all the weblogs, from Texas Monthly's to Jossip.

Check what happens in the comments on this thread over on journalist Daniel Radosh's site. Daniel picked up Debbie's piece last week, and next thing you know, people are writing about Tim Richards and how Kurt Eichenwald put innocent people in jail and blah blah crazy conspiracy land.

And so we never ever ever want to write about any of this ever again. What's most annoying is that we're against the hysteria about internet porn, and against innocent people going to jail and all that. And we figure there's gotta be at least more than one good story in all this. But is it worth the disgusting hassle?

Nathan and Eichenwald have positions on opposite sides of an underpinning debate, which is what really fuels this fracas. From his point of view, Debbie Nathan is in league with pedophiles! She has this crazy idea that there's a hysteria in the U.S. about child sex predators. And also from his point of view, Kurt Eichenwald, whose employers at Conde Nast surely aren't loving this, is exposing a massive secret internets-based network of adults who prey on children everywhere. "Every webcam in every child's room in America should be thrown out today," as Eichenwald told Oprah. Child porn is a "$20 billion-dollar business," he told the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce.

From her version to his, there are many differences in detail, narrative, and the meaning of events. Nathan's question is this:

Who had turned Justin from being a "happy kid" for whom "life was going well" and "everything was great"—as he would later tell Congress and Oprah Winfrey—into a "pretty messed up kid"?

Eichenwald noted that when [Justin's girlfriend] Michelle told Justin to stop the camwhoring, she was contravened by insidious online predators, who cajoled with treacly blandishments such as, "Just try and remember, Justin, that she may not love you, but most of us in your chat room, your friends, love you very much."

What Eichenwald doesn't reveal is that according to chat logs Justin's actual friends—his age peers in Bakersfield—were pressuring him much more intensely.

"Michelle, I'm whoring to help out some friends. It's the only way I can think of how to get that much money instantly... it's a job, and I enjoy it... I guess you don't see what I'm trying to accomplish with my cam."

But there are totally pedophiles out there, no mistake about it.

Not long before he turned 19, Justin joined Greg Mitchel in Virginia, where Mitchel ran a Sonic hamburger franchise. Teens hung around in the summer, and one, whom we will call David, was 14. Sometime in May or June, Mitchel began encouraging David to make videos of himself masturbating, using Mitchel's recording equipment. Eichenwald would later write in the Times that during the same period he had just contacted Justin and was communicating with him only online. However, in an audiotaped interview done of David by a private investigator employed by lawyers for one of the defendants charged after Eichenwald's piece was published, David says Eichenwald also was talking to Justin by phone. David describes grabbing the phone at least once, and chatting with Eichenwald. Back then, David, Justin and Greg Mitchel were unaware of Eichenwald's true identity and that he was a New York Times reporter. "We all didn't know his real name," David says on the tape. "All of us knew him as... Roy."

Eichenwald told Congress... "There were images I couldn't get out of my head when the lights went out." One image may have been of Justin in a legal pose, first displayed on his website after he turned state's evidence and not removed until about the time he gave his nationally televised congressional testimony. The image - a photo - shows him looking pensive, anxious, in sunglasses and shirtless. Viewers who click under the picture are transferred to MyLiveWebCam.com/Teen-Cams. Justin implores them to enter and register. By so doing, they can "vote" for him. But they must act soon because he is already 19, and soon will be too old for the election.