NewsweekGate

Can bad reporting be bad for your health?

Anyone wondering whether this is the case need look no further than Newsweek magazine, where a combination of lousy judgment and even lousier journalism, led to death, destruction and injury.

In a May 9 report, the once-venerable news magazine reported that US personnel at the Guantanomo Bay detention center had flushed a Koran down the toilet. The report was based on a single anonymous source who couldn’t personally verify the incident, but thought he might have seen it mentioned in a classified document of some sort.

The result was not long in coming. As Reuters described it:

The report sparked violent protests across the Muslim world -- from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan, Indonesia and Gaza. In the past week the reported desecration was condemned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and by the Arab League.

Moreover, in one fell swoop, Newsweek handed Islamist extremists new ammunition with which to stir up yet more anti-American and anti-Western sentiment.

After issuing a half-hearted apology on Sunday, the magazine came under intense criticism, and finally retracted the story on Monday.

This whole episode should serve as a lesson to journalists everywhere – it is a reminder of the incredible responsibility they bear to report the truth and to weigh the consequences of their actions.

Too often, and especially when it comes to Israel, journalists pounce on a story  because it suits their political beliefs, inevitably tossing facts to the wind and causing inestimable harm to innocent people. And then they rarely, if ever, acknowledge their mistakes.

Sure, Newsweek did apologize – but that is the exception which proves the rule. After all, how many times do major news outlets admit the errors of their ways? And even when they do, does it have any noticeable long-term effect on the substance of their reporting?

It would be nice to think that “NewsweekGate” will lead to a change in how journalists do their jobs – especially those covering the Middle East. Nice, but also most unlikely.

Comments

[Emanuel David]

Isn't it time the world understands the importance of this story. Everybody already knows that the media is completely unreliable. What people should start to understand is that muslims killed muslims over this story. If, chas veshalom, a Torah or christian bible were desecrated everyone knows there wouldn't be any reaction in which people were so brutally and needlessly killed. islam breeds hate and its time the world opens their closed eyes once and for all.

[Billie Hull]

Newsweek offered only crocodile tears. In their hurry to be the first with a scoop to discredit both the US and the US Military, they failed to vet the story properly and people died because of it. Of course, I believe the 'religion of peace' also has people waiting for moments like this, so as to have an excuse stir the pot of hate (and get media exposure)for all things non-Muslim.
It seems a rare thing any more that the media actually reports anything. They seem to all want the liberty to be pundits, but aren't willing or able to accept the responsibility for offering an opinion on a news page. I feel charges of sedition should be brought against Newsweek, and any other persons or agency that would put people in harms way, or heighten the danger they already enounter, by the need to sell the paper or pander to a certain sector of our society. If I had a subscription, I would hastily cancel it.
Shame on Newsweek.

Will it change how things are reported? Maybe in an alternate universe...