The Newsweek apology that never was. On May 15th Newsweek issued a retraction that was a week too late. The rag published an articile accusing interogators of flushing a Koran down the toilet. This caused rioting in Afghanistan and Iraq that directly led to deaths of at least 15 people and hundreds injured. Newsweek retracted only after trying at first to blame the US Government for not thoroughly reading their preliminary fact check with the Pentagon. This kind of irresponsible journalism seems to be the norm, but there seem to be 280 million consumers willing to pay to read this hearthearted attempt at reporting the news.
The following is from a comment on a friend's blog http://dcampbell7.typepad.com/campbells_corner / , I made on the subject a month ago, before Axiom Kuebler was in full swing:
The US government is not in the business of censoring media, so they are not reading Newsweek each and every day to see what half-baked rumors and speculation is being put into print.
Newsweek has the full obligation to verify its stories and sources before they go to press. They got it wrong. Time for Newsweek to be grow up and admit they made a mistake.
I feel this mistake points to a much bigger problem in the media today. They continually report items that aren't confirmed but sound plausible before they can be verified in an effort to be first. This is irresponsible and blurs the line between objectivity and hidden agendas.
Beyond that, why would Newsweek report such an item willy-nilly. There is a school of thought that says releasing that story served no one but Newsweek's ratings. I am not sure I agree with it, but before I would release an explosive story like that, I would be sure of covering my butt.
Newsweek was wrong. The media immediately circled their wagons around Newsweek, instead of applying the same investigative journalism techniques against one of their own.
When did it become a positive value in journalism to deflect blame for your own mistakes onto the victim of your hatchet job. If that victim were any citizen instead of the US Government this would be a slam dunk case of libel.
Posted by pkuebler at June 20, 2005 12:27 PM