I HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING THE NEWSWEEK/KORAN debacle that has caused rioting in Afghanistan and generally created mayhem recently in the Middle East. The one thing I noted for sure was that I didn't have anything to add to the already stellar coverage by Power Line and others.
Cap sent me an a-mail tonight though, highlighting this story on Yahoo!News:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newsweek magazine said on Sunday it erred in a May 9 report that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to the victims of deadly Muslim protests sparked by the article.
Editor Mark Whitaker said the magazine inaccurately reported that U.S. military investigators had confirmed that personnel at the detention facility in Cuba had flushed the Muslim holy book down the toilet.
The Yahoo story is as complete as it is disturbing. Newsweek's original story was based on anonymous sources and sparked rioting in which 16 people were killed and roughly 100 injured. It sparked anti-American sentiment all over the ME. Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker says this now:
"Our original source later said he couldn't be certain about reading of the alleged Koran incident in the report we cited," he wrote.
Hinderaker wraps this up far better than I can:
I think the most significant thing about this whole sorry affair is Newsweek's reliance on an anonymous source. It should be obvious by now that nearly all mainstream news outlets--the New York Times and Washington Post, most notoriously, like Newsweek in this instance--rely on a steady stream of anonymous leakers (nearly always hostile to the Bush administration) for their front-page stories. These news outlets are happy to publish anonymous allegations because the stories leaked by their sources fit the reporters' political preconceptions.
And hey, if 16 people get killed, they'll just issue a retraction. Problem solved.
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