Newsweek Lied, People Died

Upset?

Gosh no Tico.

I am rather enjoying your tap dance routine.

Obviously most - here - might think so: I got no reactions to the related media artiles, when I posted it hours back.

Of course Newsweek was out to embarrass the Bush administration. That sells more copies, you know.

tico wrote

Quote:

Of course Newsweek was out to embarrass the Bush administration. That sells more copies, you know.

Is this your thesis? You add the 'of course' up front which suggests you might actually believe it as contrasted with just saying it to fill in a blank spot on a mental page.

I just went to the recycle bin and pulled my May 9 issue, looked in the Periscope section and can't even find it! It must be burried in one of the short bits that constitute the Periscope section.

If they had done it to sell more magazines surely it would have been featured a bit more prominently.

boomerang wrote:

I just went to the recycle bin and pulled my May 9 issue, looked in the Periscope section and can't even find it! It must be burried in one of the short bits that constitute the Periscope section.

If they had done it to sell more magazines surely it would have been featured a bit more prominently.

Careful boomerang or you will be called a "Newsweek apologist." :wink:

Oh! I found it! It did take some looking though. I was going to post it but its now in Newsweeks pay archives.

If nobody's read it though I'll be happy to type it in.

I am absolutely astounded that five words out of a 1/3 page story on page 10 of the magazine caused this uproar.

up·roar ( P ) Pronunciation Key (prôr, -rr)
n.
A condition of noisy excitement and confusion; tumult: "The uproar of the street sounded violently and hideously cacophonous" (Virginia Woolf). See Synonyms at noise.
A heated controversy.

I think the word suits both situations, which is why I chose it.

No ... I said it to dispell any notion of yours that there can be any rational debate about Newsweek's motives.
Odd claim. That is precisely what you are doing here and what you did above.
They rushed to publish the story, and did so in such a manner that they chose to put fact-checking on the back-burner,
False claim. They did check, running it past a Pentagon representaive IN FULL before publishing.
What, mind you, is a possible explanation for their doing so? The truth? Surely not ... if the truth was their goal they would have held off on the story until they got their facts straight. As it is, they were in a hurry, and since the truth was not their goal, the only logical explanation is they wanted to get the juicy story out there to sell copies and increase readership.
As your claim above that 'they didn't factcheck' is false, the above becomes an argument against you. Why would they have checked the information with the Pentagon BEFORE PUBLISHING IF NOT to verify the content?

In their zeal to embarras the Bush administration,
they chose to overlook the possibility that the story was wrong.
"Zeal to embarrass"?! What in hell does the first sentence from you up top here mean?
Come, tell me ... what was their motivation, since you disagree with my theory.
First: they did fact check, so cease with the falsehood that they didn't. One can argue regarding how much fact checking a story ought to be grounded upon, and Iskioff/Newsweek can be faulted for not ensuring their source was absolutely certain he'd seen the data in that particular source. Of course, they would have been quite OK to have carried the information that the account of the Koran/toilet incident had been reported in a government paper had they understood the source wasn't clear on which paper he'd seen it. That is, after all, the only error made in their sourcing/reporting. A relevant issue here too is that the same or similar claim had surfaced many times previously in various media and reports.

Second, re motive. You are really the one making presumptuous claims about that. My understanding is based on what I consider the proper role of the news media to be, and what it MUST avoid becoming...the proper role is to reasearch and report on matters important to the citizens. It is a protection for us all against deceit, corruption and totalitarian urges of those in power. What the media must NEVER fall to is simple and trusting support for those in power.

Intrepid: Just so you will know--when i use the term paladin, i am not referring to a pot-boiler western starring Richard Boone. In the court of Charlemagne, there were twelve peers whose position was that of body guard or champion to the King (if you called the King out, he didn't actually fight you, one of the paladins did so). Therefore, long before Richard Boone made a modest living on television, the word paladin (from the the latin, palatinus, and meaning a guard in the palace in the Roman imperium) entered the language to mean a chivalric paragon, an heroic champion. You will perhaps, then, understand why i applied to Tico ironically.

Unanswered questions about Newsweek's false story
Marvin Olasky (archive)

May 19, 2005

Newsweek's retraction of its false Quran-down-the-toilet story still leaves at least 16 dead and at least that many unanswered questions. Here are a few:

-- Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff says no one "foresaw that a reference to the desecration of the Koran was going to create the kind of response that it did." Newsweek assistant managing editor Evan Thomas says Muslim reaction "came as something of a surprise" to the magazine's editors. But no one familiar with Islam was surprised: Ardent Muslims treat copies of the Quran reverently and never place it on the floor; desecrating the Quran in Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia is a capital crime. Why are national magazine editors so theologically illiterate?

-- If Newsweek journalists had been more knowledgeable about the likely reaction, would they still have run the story? The magazine on Oct. 21, 2002, ripped Jerry Falwell's riot-causing depiction of Muhammad as a "terrorist," since "Islamic fundamentalists are having a field day with these comments, which have been played and replayed throughout the Muslim world." Does Newsweek have a similar responsibility not to cry fire in a crowded theater?

-- If Newsweek claims a responsibility to print the truth, even when it's likely to lead to riots, why didn't it try harder to ascertain the truth? Sourcery -- the use of anonymous sources -- has long been a journalistic problem, and going with one spectral speaker on something explosive like this seems particularly questionable. (The biblical standard is the testimony of two witnesses, and they have to be willing to come forward.)

-- Why did Newsweek, after getting this story wrong, report new Quran-into-the-latrine charges made by terrorists and their allies? The magazine "balanced" the new allegations by reporting a U.S. colonel's statement that "If you read the Al Qaeda training manual, they are trained to make allegations against the infidels." But since terrorist testimony is not credible, why quote such charges without independent investigation?

-- Did Newsweek go easy in scrutinizing the accusation because it is a sucker for attacks on the military and the Bush administration? At least once before, Isikoff has run with a false anti-military story on a one-source basis. Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker told the Post that "there was absolutely no lapse in journalistic standards here." If so, isn't it time to change the standards?

-- Should Newsweek be pushed to reveal the name of the government official it says was its source? Some journalists have gone to jail rather than reveal names of anonymous sources, but what's the responsibility when the source has borne false witness and caused the loss of innocent life? Shouldn't journalists offer only conditional anonymity, with the condition being, "tell the truth"?

-- Will other big media declare their firm opposition to sneak attacks such as those Newsweek is famous for? Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne opined on Oct. 18, 2002, that President Bush should go after Falwell because "one test of leadership is a willingness to take on your own side … Mr. President, we're waiting." The Post, which has the same parent company as Newsweek, has been mild in its critique of its own side. Washington Post, we're waiting.

-- What does the riotous reaction tell us about Islam? Why do many Muslims leap into deadly activities at the drop of a story like this, or a report during a beauty pageant that Muhammad -- so his friends said -- liked and seized beautiful women? At least now, maybe, fewer people will buy the movie "Kingdom of Heaven's" sweet depiction of Islam.

-- Is there a sickness at the heart of press liberalism that leads many journalists to want the Guantanamo story to be true? Given the way Islamofascists act, do these journalists have a death wish for themselves and Western civilization?