Newsweek Retracts Story Re: Defiling of Koran at Guantanamo

The story sparked a deadly riot.

The weekly news magazine said in its May 23 edition that the original source of the allegation was not sure where he saw the assertion that at least one copy of the Koran was flushed down a toilet in an attempt to get detainees to talk.

"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," Editor Mark Whitaker wrote in the magazine's latest issue, due to appear on U.S. newsstands on Monday.

The media does in fact have an impressive fact-checking system.

If a quote or purported fact portrays Republicans, the military, or America generally in a positive light, they check it to death to make sure they're not spreading propaganda.

But... if the quote or purpoted fact portrays those in a negative light, it pretty much gets into print with only the most cursory once-over by the editors. If it agrees with their basic world-view -- if it feels "right" in their gut -- then in runs.

Fact-checking comes later... after a couple of newly-minted corpses.

"There Is No Sanctuary" Update: Newsweek's Washington Bureau Chief, Dan Klaidman, claims there is "no institutional bias" regarding its publishing of an unverified smear as fact.

That's bullshit, of course.

But I think it says something that these rotten bastards are now forced to deny the the truth they could previously simply ignore.

Denial is one of the first steps to recovery, right?

posted by Ace at 05:49 PM

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