This is an interesting point, I think.
Here is the Washington Post's story on Newsweek's apology:
Newsweek Apologizes
Inaccurate Report on Koran Led to Riots
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 16, 2005; Page A01
Newsweek apologized yesterday for an inaccurate report on the treatment of detainees that triggered several days of rioting in Afghanistan and other countries in which at least 15 people died.
Editor Mark Whitaker expressed regret over the item in the magazine's "Periscope" section, saying it was based on a confidential source -- a "senior U.S. government official" -- who now says he is not sure whether the story is true.
Pakistani lawmaker and the chief of a coalition of radical Islamic groups, Qazi Hussain Ahmed gestures during a press conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, May 15, 2005. Islamic groups in Pakistan, Egypt, Malaysia, Britain and Turkey will hold rallies later this month in coordinated international protests against the alleged desecration of Islam's holy book Quran at the United States prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Ahmed said. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed) (Anjum Naveed - AP)
The deadly consequences of the May 1 report, and its reliance on the unnamed source, have sparked considerable anger at the Pentagon. Spokesman Bryan Whitman called Newsweek's report "irresponsible" and "demonstrably false," saying the magazine "hid behind anonymous sources which by their own admission do not withstand scrutiny. Unfortunately, they cannot retract the damage that they have done to this nation or those who were viciously attacked by those false allegations."
Whitaker said last night that "whatever facts we got wrong, we apologize for. I've expressed regret for the loss of life and the violence that put American troops in harm's way. I'm getting a lot of angry e-mail about that, and I understand it."
The report, in the issue dated May 9, said U.S. military investigators had found that American interrogators at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had flushed a copy of the Koran, the sacred Muslim text, down a toilet. A week later, when newspapers in Afghanistan and Pakistan picked up the item, it sparked anti-American demonstrations in the Afghan city of Jalalabad in which four protesters were killed and more than 60 injured. About a dozen more protesters were killed in the following days when the demonstrations spread across Afghanistan and to Pakistan and other countries.
"There had been previous reports about the Koran being defiled, but they always seemed to be rumors or allegations made by sources without evidence," Whitaker said, referring to reporting by British and Russian news agencies and by the Qatar-based satellite network al-Jazeera. The Washington Post, whose parent company owns Newsweek, reported a similar account in March 2003, attributing it to a group of former detainees. "The fact that a knowledgeable source within the U.S. government was telling us the government itself had knowledge of this was newsworthy," Whitaker said in an interview.
He said that a senior Pentagon official, for reasons that "are still a little mysterious to us," had declined to comment after Newsweek correspondent John Barry showed him a draft before the item was published and asked, "Is this accurate or not?" Whitaker added that the magazine would have held off had military spokesmen made such a request. That official "lacked detailed knowledge" of the investigative report, Newsweek now says. Whitaker said Pentagon officials raised no objection to the story for 11 days after it was published, until it was translated by some Arab media outlets and led to the rioting.
The item was principally reported by Michael Isikoff, Newsweek's veteran investigative reporter. "Obviously we all feel horrible about what flowed from this, but it's important to remember there was absolutely no lapse in journalistic standards here," he said. "We relied on sources we had every reason to trust and gave the Pentagon ample opportunity to comment. . . . We're going to continue to investigate what remains a very murky situation."
Isikoff, a former Post reporter, gained national attention in 1998 when the magazine held his report on an independent counsel's investigation of Monica S. Lewinsky's relationship with President Bill Clinton. More recently, Isikoff and Barry won an Overseas Press Club award for their reporting on Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
The 10-sentence item said an upcoming report by the U.S. Southern Command in Miami was "expected" to include the alleged Koran incident -- the subject of only one sentence -- among various abusive techniques used "to rattle suspects" at Guantanamo. Since then, Pentagon officials and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said investigators found "no credible allegations of willful Koran desecration," as Whitman put it.
On Saturday, when Isikoff reached his original source, the magazine said, the official "could no longer be sure" that the Koran allegation "had surfaced" in the SouthCom investigation.
"Just as citizens," Whitaker said, "we feel badly about the fact that there's been a rash of violence. . . . Clearly, that was not our intent in publishing what we thought was a solid news item."............
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/15/AR2005051500605.html?
I know now where I would have read about it before, btw - I get regular BBC news updates - and sometimes read Al Jazerera and the Washington Post.
I think the Pentagon fella is wrong when he says it is "demonstrably false" - since, as far as I know there has been no investigation - (but I know that the bastard of such accusations, once made, is that you can't disprove a goddamned negative - hence the care to be taken in making tham) - however, it raises a lot of ethical issues.
I think most people - who do not support the US government and the war with absolute fervour - would consider it likely that the story was believed to be solid by Newsweek when they went with it.
Lots of stuff is published based on such sources.
Clearly, there is a strong ethical responsibility to be very sure before publishing this sort of material - but we also accuse the American media of cowardice for NOT publishing about Abu Ghraib etc for so long after the stories began to circulate.
What I am wondering is if they should have been aware that this was a likely tinderbox - and applied an even higher standard?
But then again, ANYTHING about American mis-treatment of Muslims (even if 100% undoubtedly true) is likely to be a tinderbox - and we would not want the press not reporting things.
Not being a journo, I am unsure how far wrong Newsweek was ethically????
I would be interested in comments on this that are not partisan - imagine they published something of equal weight - but without the partisan hysteria attached to it - with exactly the same evidence, where a source later retracted their sureness. (I know that is hard - but I would be fascinated by any dispassionate views that might find their way through the thickets. The awful results make it very hard to think dispassionately, I do understand.)
By the by - is Newsweek normally considered to do its journalistic homework? I know Setanta despises it - but I truly have not read it since I was about ten, and I have no idea.
