The Anchoress

FINAL: The editors at Lucianne.com add this sobering thought:

More people were tortured and killed in the Newsweek riots than at Gitmo

Hmmm. Abu Ghraib, too.

Midnight. I’ll let Baldilocks close this running post with one wry remark and a fine observation:

The wry remark: Nice shooting, clowns.

And the observation: Note to those who are blowing the intentions of the “religious right” out of proportion: if Christians were to riot the next time some so-called artist puts a crucifix in a bucket full of urine, that would be religious extremism and then it would be time to worry about Christians. Wake me when it happens.

You said it, gal! Baldi has an excellent post, here as well.

11:00PM Is this the press’ Abu Ghraib? Austin Bay is wondering. Their half-assed apology (Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we. But 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.) does not impress him.

But why might this be the press’ Abu Ghraib? Here’s the connection: globe-girdling technology has once again amplified foolish behavior, lack of professionalism, and disregard for consequences into a tragedy. Consider Abu Ghraib, without the fevered hyperbole of The Nation or The Guardian. The behavior of US troops at the prison was inexcuseable –frat rat hazing, trailer trash porn, street punk threat taken up ten quanta to felony prisoner abuse. But dump the hyperbole and call Abu Ghraib what it was: rank felony abuse, not deadly torture. The global dissemination of Lynndie England’s dog leash photos, etc., (and magnification of the abuse by anti-American critics) made Abu Ghraib the political and historical scar it is. The US soldiers committed a crime, but information technology made the crime an international fiasco. When evaluating early investigations into Abu Ghraib Don Rumsfeld and his cohort of advisers –techno whizzes that they supposedly are– were operating with a 1970s information template.To Don Rumsfeld “pictures” meant a snapshot on a piece of paper marked “Kodak”– he didn’t realize his 20-year-old troops take photos with electronic cameras and “print” them in digital pixels. Anyone with teenagers or a ten year-old with a photo-cell phone knows your navel can be an international sensation in two minutes.

To a degree Newsweek is operating on a “paper template” where the editors and reporters believe the story they “print” shows up in mailboxes or on a magazine rack. In this “template” a phony press allegation remains “local” or US-bound. But there is no “over there” in our world, not anymore. We live in a world where everyone is – in terms of information– next door. Technological compression is the term I coined to describe the situation. Some slip-ups merely damage reputations– Dan Rather and Eason Jordan come to mind. World War Two vets know “loose lips sink ships.” Today, loose (computer) disks can sink ships, but loosey-goosey allegations can lead to riot and death.

While we’re talking Abu Ghraib, Christopher Hitchens says: It ain’t Guarnica.

10:50PM Not to be petty or picayune, I was remembering about how Newsweek once SPIKED an Isikoff story that it didn’t like, and wondering if anyone else remembered a particular instance…and then, happily for me, before I could research it, a commenter at Captain Ed’s spelled it out for us, and For Now sent it along:

THIS Newsweek spiked back in 1998–too controversial–the Koran item gets printed without checking.
From:

Yep. Kinda interesting, what Newsweek will spike and what it won’t. If it might hurt their guy, a story gets spiked. If it might hurt the other side’s guy…and get 15 or so people killed, btw…eh, we can let that get printed.

10:27PM Betsy Newmark, good history teacher that she is, is seeing some similarities between the Newsweek Riots and Bismark’s underhanded manipulation of France. She writes:

Which brings me to Bismarck’s deviousness to get France to declare war on Prussia. Bismarck knew exactly what he was doing and got the outcome he desired: France appearing to be the aggressor and declaring war on Prussia. Could Newsweek be getting exactly the reaction that it hoped for?

Ms. Newmark is not prone to wild conspiracy theories, and she wryly dismisses this one. But the question cannot be asked enough: WHAT is going on with Newsweek?

Cassandra doesn’t think it matters:

One may ask, “did Newsweek intentionally lie?” The answer does not really matter. The “sources” were dubious from the beginning. Newsweek has no new information now that it could not have easily gotten before the story ran. I give Newsweek more credit than I give to CBS for the CBS handling of the Rathergate affair, but that is not saying much.

Let’s just say the mainstream media is - once again - not covering itself in glory, shall we? What a damn shame. I grieve for the craft of journalism and all the GOOD journalists who are tainted by the sloppy work of others.

10: 15 PMGateway Pundit has his own theory and it’s about Michael Isikoff’s motives:

On April 28, 2002, in a story in Newsweek entitled “Phantom Link To Iraq,” Michael Isikoff reported that the meeting that had been widely reported in the press between the September 11th hijacker Mohamed Atta and the Iraqi consul Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, in April 2001 never actually took place.

[...]

In, fact, there never had been a retraction, or even modification, from the officials in the Czech Republic supervising the Czech intelligence service.

Gateway seems pre-tty ticked off, to me.

10:PM Michelle Malkin’s readers asked for clarification: Did she really believe Newsweek LIED? Michelle writes: *Didn’t think I needed to s-p-e-l-l i-t o-u-t, but some readers asked for clarification. Newsweek was reckless and sloppy and wrong. But I do not think the magazine “lied.” Just thought it a very appropriate moment to do a boomerang on the moonbats’ most dishonest and annoying meme.

Well, she has a point. There IS a distinction between out-and-out lying and simply believing a thing and acting on it. We’ve been hearing for years that “Bush lied; people died” because the president dared to actually believe the same information that both Clintons, Kerry, Kennedy and the rest all purported to believe, and then take action on it. If others would not make that distinction, in fairness, to President Bush, we still are obligated to do so for Newsweek. It’s what right-thinking people do. Do I think they deliberately lied? No. I think they, like Mary Mapes and Dan Rather, Isikoff and his editors simply wanted to believe the story so badly that rubbed their hands together in glee, to think they “had” something that was “big” and “inflammatory” and well-yes-it-might-put-the-troops-in-harms-way-but-even-more-important-it-can-probably-be-spun-destructively-against-Bush-and-the-successful-prosecution-of-the-war-and-will-provide-some-international-fodder-as-well and then went ahead and printed it - going with only anonymous sources - and damn the consequences.

Reckless. Unethical. Harmful. Destructive. In-freaking-credible.

UPDATE: The Political Teen has video of the Newsweek Riots and says he will continue to post as the story breaks.

Sunday, 2:14PM An ANONYMOUSLY SOURCED remark is causing death and mayhem.

The quote:

Investigators probing interrogation abuses at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay have confirmed some infractions alleged in internal FBI e-mails that surfaced late last year. Among the previously unreported cases, sources tell NEWSWEEK: interrogators, in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur’an down a toilet and led a detainee around with a collar and dog leash.

Got that? No source. No one to back that up, no accountability. Just a tremendously inflammatory rumor thrown out by a major news magazine - a rumor that any reasonable person has to know will cause trouble - and not trouble, it must be said, with the supposedly “Theocratic Christians” who are accustomed to seeing their Holy Book DISRESPECTED by some quarters, (not that the press would choose to notice) but from the truly Theocratic Muslims, the ones whom Europe would appease and about whom the left will never find fault, because to do so might actually mean - in their sick, convoluted world of hate - supporting George W. Bush.

Michelle Malkin coins it, and it bears repeating.

Newsweek Lied, People Died

You have the read the story by now via the Times (UK) online and elsewhere: “At least nine people were killed yesterday as a wave of anti-American demonstrations swept the Islamic world from the Gaza Strip to the Java Sea, sparked by a single paragraph in a magazine alleging that US military interrogators had desecrated the Koran.”

In a jaw-dropping editor’s note, Newsweek’s Mark Whitaker admits that the deadly paragraph was wrong.

The statement in full: (emphasis mine - anchoress)

May 23 issue - Did a report in NEWSWEEK set off a wave of deadly anti-American riots in Afghanistan? That’s what numerous news accounts suggested last week as angry Afghans took to the streets to protest reports, linked to us, that U.S. interrogators had desecrated the Qur’an while interrogating Muslim terror suspects. We were as alarmed as anyone to hear of the violence, which left at least 15 Afghans dead and scores injured. But I think it’s important for the public to know exactly what we reported, why, and how subsequent events unfolded.

Two weeks ago, in our issue dated May 9, Michael Isikoff and John Barry reported in a brief item in our periscope section that U.S. military investigators had found evidence that American guards at the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had committed infractions in trying to get terror suspects to talk, including in one case flushing a Qur’an down a toilet. Their information came from a knowledgeable U.S. government source, and before deciding whether to publish it we approached two separate Defense Department officials for comment. One declined to give us a response; the other challenged another aspect of the story but did not dispute the Qur’an charge.

Although other major news organizations had aired charges of Qur’an desecration based only on the testimony of detainees, we believed our story was newsworthy because a U.S. official said government investigators turned up this evidence. So we published the item. After several days, newspapers in Pakistan and Afghan-istan began running accounts of our story. At that point, as Evan Thomas, Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai report this week, the riots started and spread across the country, fanned by extremists and unhappiness over the economy.

Last Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told us that a review of the probe cited in our story showed that it was never meant to look into charges of Qur’an desecration. The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated other desecration charges by detainees and found them “not credible.” Our original source later said he couldn’t be certain about reading of the alleged Qur’an incident in the report we cited, and said it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts. Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we. But 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.

Wow.

Great job, NEWSWEEK. The new standard in journalism is the “prove the negative” standard? If someone “does not argue” against a story that confirms it is true, and so it’s okay to run with an anonymous story that will undoubtedly ignite something violent and bad? Clearly, Mark Whitaker is trying to claim that reporting these so-called desecrations of the Muslim Holy Book is a matter of ethical journalism. Rules of Ethical journalism has never inspired him to report on the Holy Bible being used for toilet paper, but I digress…

What is at work here - why is Newsweek deliberately pouring fuel onto a fire?

I suspect it has to do with a general desire to make life very difficult for a president they hate, and perhaps an overzealous mindset determined to give aid, comfort and support to a faction who would love to put together a GITMO/ABU GHRAIB = IMPEACHMENT meme and bring it into sharp focus. The best way to help a party into the White House is by thoroughly scandalizing and demonizing the other party, non?

Is that suspicion of mine unfair? Some will probably say yes, but after Rathergate, after watching the press completely ignore or try to discredit the Swift Boat Vets rather than ask their preferred candidate a SINGLE QUESTION concerning his military records, after watching the AP report that Republicans cheered Bill Clinton’s heart attack, I no longer feel like I’m being unfair to question with a highly skeptical eye, any motivations of the mainstream press.

Little Green Footballs has more with “The Jihad Newsweek Inspired.”

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A group of Afghan Muslim clerics threatened on Sunday to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it hands over military interrogators reported to have desecrated the Koran.

Okay…is NEWSWEEK going to be held accountable for this fiasco, which has cost human lives and which complicates everything our nation is trying to do? They were giddy back when Evan Thomas predicted (quite rightly, from what I can tell) that the press would be able to hand John Kerry 10 or 15 % points he’d never have gotten on his own. Will they be giddy over this NEW example of the misuse of the power of the press???

The usual suspects, of course, don’t question whether NEWSWEEK was reporting an actual fact. A snotty, “Hey, if someone is making an accusation against America, that’s enough for us!” is all they can offer. Sez the Diplomatic Times Review: If Americans interrogators hadn’t put the Qur’an in the toilet, there wouldn’t have been a story.

Egad.

Roger L. Simon asks, quite rightly,

So what is going on at Newsweek? Has their ancient business model (the weekly newsmagazine) become so procrustean that they must resort to unsourced scoops on the Internet to call attention to themselves? This is something that bloggers are accused of. But of course they are worse than bloggers because they are not subject to our immediate feedback and editing, as I am just beneath this post. If I were to make a similar anonymously sourced accusation on here, I would be crucified by my readers and deservedly so. If my source proved to be lying or significantly embellishing on a matter of this gravity (and with such dire results), I would feel so ashamed I don’t believe I would continue this blog. If that happens to Newsweek, they and their reporters will have to deal with their own consciences.

Somehow, Mr. Simon, I don’t believe we’ll see any such stricken consciences at NEWSWEEK. Just some defensive moves, a sly insinuation that they are “only” rescinding the story because the White House is making them do it, and then they’ll go on their merry way.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey rightly suggests that the press - always quick to caustically suggest that bloggers are “sloppy” with sources and do not adequately research their work - might want to look in its own backyard.

UPDATE: Again from Roger Simon, it seems I’m right NEWSWEEK doesn’t have a problem with what it did in overrelying on ANONYMOUS SOURCES to report a story…The pentagon does, though, and wonders why the NEWSWEEK folk keep going back to “the son of a bitch” who has no credibility. So, no, NO ACCOUNTABILITY, and NO TROUBLED CONSCIENCES AT NEWSWEEK.

But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the SouthCom report. Told of what the NEWSWEEK source said, [Pentagon spokesman] DiRita exploded, “People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?”

Says Mr. Simon: But who is that “son of a bitch”? Newsweek isn’t saying. Until they report such things as that, I won’t believe a word the magazine says. Why would anybody?

Um. Hey, Newsweek: People are dead, and our military is at further risk, and much of what we have tried to do to help Afghanistan get its government strong is being undone, because of what you CHOSE TO PRINT BASED ON A SOURCE WHO WOULDN’T BACK IT UP WITH HIS NAME OR REPUTATION. ”

Powerline has a pretty in-depth look at all of this, and one reads it and really thinks Isikoff needs to resign.

Blackfive, meanwhile, is full of some righteous anger at how things get reported: When we win a battle in some dusty, Godforsaken border town the bolded headline is more likely to read, “10 Marines killed”.
Yet when we make a mistake, even if the story is unsubstantiated, the tale is bruited far and wide, often with deadly consequences for those on the front lines. .

Indeed.

I’ll update from the top of this post as this grows. But I might point out that it would perhaps help the press, all around if they would take the advice of Benedict XVI in his message to the media which boils down to:
be ethical and seek the truth. H/T RCB.

I know that many in the press, whether they read Benedict or care what he has to say or not, DO try to be ethical and seek the truth. Unfortunately…they don’t seem to be the guys in power, anymore. Jimmie at has a lot to say in anger, about the folks in the press who ARE in power.

WELCOME Michelle Malkin readers - please have a look around. Today we’re also talking about Mark Steyn exposing the ineffectiveness of the UN, the Judiciary Filibusters and the death of pop culture.