Newsweek Should Pay A Price
Dean
As others have noted, Newsweek is retracting its story on the supposed desecration of a Koran by U.S. service members.
Not good enough, Newsweek. People have died because of your shoddy work. Furthermore, a half-assed retraction won't do because many in the muslim world will not hear about the retraction--and many others will choose not to believe the retraction. You guys now have blood on your hands, and you're going to keep having blood on your hands because of this, as many will claim that the retraction is "lies" and that it "really happened."
Furthermore, if we ever had any doubts that the press is not on our side in the war, that it is anxious to publish stories of failure and doom and rarely cares to look at our successes (many of them utterly historic), well, Michael Isikoff John Barry and the Newsweek editorial team have finally laid them to rest. You guys are enemy propagandists. It's just who you are. It's nice that you've at least stopped pretending.
This is also still further proof that the notion that "professional" journalists have greater fact-checking or "checks and balances" than responsible bloggers is nonsense.
Screw you, Newsweek. Screw you.
* Update * Be sure to see this comment left at Austin Bay's site. (The article it's attached to it also top notch, by the way.)
Hank Barnes
This is much worse than the "memogate" issue; but it is also of a piece with a whole string of MSM stories over the past couple decades. Remember ALAR? How about the kerfuffle over silicone breast implants? Exploding truck gas tanks? Westmoreland? The MSM routinely puts out bullsh** and then, at best, gives us a small "I'm sorry" some time later...but they've never paid a price for their actions.
We really need to do something to make 'em pay for this one...I'm thinking that a good lawyer could gin up a lawsuit representing the families of the dead Afghans...heck, it is the MSM who are always on and on about how tort reform would be a disaster....give 'em a taste of it, and see how they like it...
Their defenders will whimper that Newsweek "acted in good faith," while the usual suspects while maunder on about the "chilling effects" from suppressing free speech by holding these dolts responsible.
It's only $25-30 a year, so I won't be doing any major damage. But I'm not going to renew.
I predict though that Isakof will be fired and next week's cover story will be an apology. I also predict that people in Afghanistan will say that the government made Newsweek retract and that the Koran flushing really happened.
I do think, however, that the reaction to all this proves how barbaric people in that part of the world can be. People in THIS part of the world would NEVER have reacted in a murderous way to someone flushing the Bible.
While I think Newsweek deserves much scorn and wrath for this, you really have to wonder about the nutcases over in Afghanistan that would react this way to the story.
This results in ignoring other virtues, such as the preservation of human life.
"I do think, however, that the reaction to all this proves how barbaric people in that part of the world can be. People in THIS part of the world would NEVER have reacted in a murderous way to someone flushing the Bible."
I don't know about flushing, but Saudi customs officials have destroyed people's Bibles in the process of confiscating them. (I think the specific law that's violated is against non-Islamic religious materials.)
Given their clear conduct over the last couple of years, I doubt it would be all that hard to show malice. Malice to the Administration, it's policies, and the United States in general. Years of incessant anti-American hate-speech, labeled as "news". This story is nothing unique, just the latest. Malice is exactly the issue, and the point. This was no innocent mistake.
The solution occurs to me, actually. The solution being not "warn the Americans," but "send out the story," which would then be picked up by the newswires, read by American commanders, etc.
I can agree with the general proposition that an American journalist should be able to gain access to the enemy if he can, interview politicians and soldiers, etc.
Most appropriate in this circumstance would be a reporter, for example, who runs his employer's bureau in the Kosanese capital, attends the Kosanese president's press conferences, and reports on conditions in the Kosanese capital and elsewhere.
That American journalist, at least, is doing his duty as a journalist by bringing Americans a perspective on how the enemy thinks, believes, acts, etc. But the more I think about it, the less comfortable I would be with an American journalist who is embedded with an enemy unit, especially if he follows that unit into a combat zone.
--|PW|--
There are two distinct questions here. First, what are a journalist's responsibilities to ensure the truth of what he or she reports? Second, once a story has been verified as true, does an American reporter have a greater responsibility to the troops in the field who may be put into harm's way or to American interests more generally?
It's my impression that there are specific standards for the first question and that Newsweek's conduct on this story doesn't meet those standards. And, clearly, the second question is a judgement call but it looks to me like a judgement call that Newsweek has failed.
And how many Christians went on a murderous rampage against Muslims as a result?
It's also beside the point. The press no longer even considers the possibility that it might act as an enemy propagandist. It's the farthest thing from their minds, not even on their list of considerations.
So what exactly does that say about them?
This is much worse than the "memogate" issue;
Only because 'memogate' failed to tip the election.
Given a choice between 16 dead people, and a US Presidential election tipped by forged documents, I'll take the 16 dead people. Why? Simple- having the wrong person in the Oval Office can result in a lot more than 16 dead people.