"Has it gotten completely out of hand based on an
uncorroborated story? It would seem so. The real
consequences of poor journalism written large."
"People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said."
The QandO Blog
Posted by: McQ on Sunday, May 15, 2005
That's a quote from Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita after he found out that the Newsweek source on the alleged "Koran flushing" incident was backing away from his story.
Evan Thomas, of Newsweek online says:
<<<
The brief PERISCOPE item ("SouthCom Showdown") had reported on the expected results of an upcoming U.S. Southern Command investigation into the abuse of prisoners at Gitmo. According to NEWSWEEK, SouthCom investigators found that Gitmo interrogators had flushed a Qur'an down a toilet in an attempt to rattle detainees. While various released detainees have made allegations about Qur'an desecration, the Pentagon has, according to DiRita, found no credible evidence to support them.
>>>
Mark Whitaker of Newsweek now says the following:
<<<
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.
>>>
Well gee, thanks. But what the hell happened Newsweek?
Again, according to Whitaker:
<<<
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.
>>>
In other words, they took the word of a single source and didn't corroborate the story. They'd have flunked Journalism 101. Nice work, guys.
UPDATE: It even gets better:
<<<
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.
The warning came after 16 Afghans were killed and more than 100 hurt last week in the worst anti-U.S. protests across the country since U.S. forces invaded in 2001 to oust the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.
>>>
Has it gotten completely out of hand based on an uncorroborated story? It would seem so. The real consequences of poor journalism written large.
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