Newsweek says erred in Koran desecration report

Newsweek magazine on Sunday said it erred in a May 9 report that said U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to the victims of deadly Muslim protests sparked by the article.

“We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst,” Editor Mark Whitaker wrote in the magazine’s latest issue, due to appear on U.S. newsstands on Monday. —David MorganNewsweek says erred in Koran desecration report (Reuters | MyWay)

A tiny item in Newsweek sparked huge international protests in Islamic countries, launching a huge wave of fresh anti-American sentiment, and leading to clashes in which protestors lost their lives.

The Reuters article cites former Guantanamo prisoners who reported abuse of the Koran, but Newsweek felt the accusations suddenly became newsworthy when a U.S. military official corroborated the claims. Later, that official backed down. Since the impetus to go with the story was based on the U.S. official’s confirmation of the story, when that confirmation is withdrawn, Newsweek is left on shaky ground.

Rarely does a journalistic oversight have consequences that are this immediate, this dire, and this uncorrectable:

The report sparked angry and violent protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan to Indonesia to Gaza. In the past week it was condemned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and by the Arab League. On Sunday, Afghan Muslim clerics threatened to call for a holy war against the United States.

5 thoughts on “Newsweek says erred in Koran desecration report

  1. Yeah…I just get a nasty little feeling about newsweek getting all the blame for what happened. They reported something that had been reported elsewhere with less credible sources, and today’s story is “The White House says Newsweek took a “good first step” by retracting its story…but it wants the magazine to do more to repair damage caused by the article.”

    ‘”The report had real consequences,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Monday. “People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged…. It will take work to undo what can be undone.”‘

    I guess I just think that Newsweek is getting a lot of blame because it’s convenient to put it on them, and I’m waiting to see what this will be used as an excuse for.

  2. The article to which I linked does accurately refer to “a brief item” in Newsweek. But the riots, injuries, and deaths mean the results are big. And in the aftermath of CBS’s incredibly slow roundabout way of acknoweldging weaknesses in its reporting on the alleged Bush National Guard memos, Newsweek was reacting strongly and quickly.

    The practice of relying on anonymous sources is sparking much debate among professional journalists now. Yes, Newsweek did actually provide a draft of the article to a military official, who challenged one part of the story but didn’t challenge the bit about the Koran.

    There’s a saying among journalists… “If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.”

    There are different levels of anonymity… I might agree to speak to a reporter if I am identified as “A humanities professor at Seton Hill University,” and I might dish out all kinds of (hypothetical) dirt. But the reporter can’t just publish that without checking it out — I might be lying, or I might know only part of the story. I might agree to provide background details, without my name or title appearing anywhere in the story, but the details I supply might help the reporter find someone else who is willing to go on the record. Or, I might simply confirm (or challenge) details that someone else told the reporter (either on or off the record).

    It’s unfortunate that one small detail, which Newsweek ultimately wasn’t able to verify, caused such a reaction. The U.S. military has admitted to some rather horrific and humiliating abuses of prisoners, so this particular detail seems plausible — but just because it’s possible doesn’t mean that it “checks out”.

    I think Newsweek is more interested in maintaining its reputation for good journalism — and preserving its access to military sources — than it is in advancing this particular detail, since as you note it was a very small piece of the article in question.

  3. “But it’s bad journalism to publish a story — whether you think it’s true or not — that would unravel if one source suddenly clams up or retracts a statement.”

    I don’t understand how that could possibly be true. Don’t quite a few stories come from one semi-anonamous source?

    I was listening to Newsweek defend itself on the radio tonight, and they were going through the steps that they went through to verify the story…it was a long tale that I’m not going to take the time to write, but I thought it was interesting that they said that the entire piece was like 10 sentences long, and the text about the Koran was like 8 words like – the whole “story” was just a minor piece they happened to publish.

    I think it’s interesting how such a small piece gets blown up into such large proportions, then the story that’s made out of it leave out “uninteresting” details. Like the size of the newsweek “story” in the article you linked to.

  4. You know…the spin always seems to be “bad Newsweek”, but to me it just sounds like the military source probably got cold feet after it caused controversy, and retracted his statement because he didn’t want to have his career ruined in the ensuing manhunt by the military to figure out who leaked the information.

    Well…that’s what I think.

  5. But it’s bad journalism to publish a story — whether you think it’s true or not — that would unravel if one source suddenly clams up or retracts a statement. If Newsweek had the source on tape, saying that he was willing to go on the record to make this claim about military abuse of the Koran, then the news would be “military official changes story”. Obviously Newsweek isn’t confident in its own ability to defend its story. If additional evidence turns up later that backs the story, Newsweek will still have jumped the gun, and that’s not responsible journalism.

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