We Report. You Die. Pt II

Here's a roundup of the past couple of days' worth of punditry on Isiquiddick:

Newsweek retracts the story.

Kurtz kurtzes Newsweek's non-apology:

The report, in the issue dated May 9, said U.S. military investigators had found that American interrogators at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had flushed a copy of the Koran, the sacred Muslim text, down a toilet. A week later, when newspapers in Afghanistan and Pakistan picked up the item, it sparked anti-American demonstrations in the Afghan city of Jalalabad in which four protesters were killed and more than 60 injured. About a dozen more protesters were killed in the following days when the demonstrations spread across Afghanistan and to Pakistan and other countries.

"There had been previous reports about the Koran being defiled, but they always seemed to be rumors or allegations made by sources without evidence," Whitaker said, referring to reporting by British and Russian news agencies and by the Qatar-based satellite network al-Jazeera. The Washington Post, whose parent company owns Newsweek, reported a similar account in March 2003, attributing it to a group of former detainees. "The fact that a knowledgeable source within the U.S. government was telling us the government itself had knowledge of this was newsworthy," Whitaker said in an interview.

He said that a senior Pentagon official, for reasons that "are still a little mysterious to us," had declined to comment after Newsweek correspondent John Barry showed him a draft before the item was published and asked, "Is this accurate or not?" Whitaker added that the magazine would have held off had military spokesmen made such a request. That official "lacked detailed knowledge" of the investigative report, Newsweek now says. Whitaker said Pentagon officials raised no objection to the story for 11 days after it was published, until it was translated by some Arab media outlets and led to the rioting.

The item was principally reported by Michael Isikoff, Newsweek's veteran investigative reporter. "Obviously we all feel horrible about what flowed from this, but it's important to remember there was absolutely no lapse in journalistic standards here," he said. "We relied on sources we had every reason to trust and gave the Pentagon ample opportunity to comment. . . . We're going to continue to investigate what remains a very murky situation."

Well, if it's a good enough explanation for a "media critic", who are we to judge differently?

George Neumayr, not surprisingly, has a different take (and one worthy of the "media critic" moniker):

The mainstream media often denounce conservative criticism of Islam as "inflammatory." Then they make sure it is inflammatory by broadcasting the criticism in tabloid form to the ends of the earth so that Muslims will be properly inflamed. A few years ago, for example, Jerry Falwell's critique of Islam as a violent religion was beamed to the Muslim world by media outlets very deeply concerned about Muslim-Christian concord, and bloody riots followed. Falwell had provoked the riots, the media piously reported even as they happily stoked them.

The oh-so-irenic media seem to delight in inflaming Muslims by letting them know what America has said or done that should inflame them. The media express anger that George Bush has "alienated" the Muslim world while they simultaneously distort what Bush has done in the war on terrorism so as to guarantee that alienation.

This is a very cynical game, and it has caught up with at least one publication now, Newsweek. Its editors, expecting to spend this week castigating the Bush administration for causing discord in the Muslim world by permitting anti-Islamic abuse at its Guantanamo Bay detention facilities, had to admit that their false report about U.S. military interrogators' desecration of the Koran sparked rioting across the Middle East. But like Dan Rather, Newsweek is allowing itself an array of defenses it would never extend to the conservatives it covers.

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas, in his post-mortem on the debacle this week, "How a Fire Broke Out," dusts off a defense Dan Rather tried, which we can call the-subject-whom-we-were-smearing-didn't-correct-us defense. Remember Rather's crack research team assumed that the Bush White House's mute response to its preview of the forged National Guard documents was confirmation of their validity. Evan Thomas, using this new species of journalistic accuracy testing, writes a bit peevishly that Newsweek had "provided a draft of the NEWSWEEK PERISCOPE item to a Senior Defense official, asking, 'Is this accurate or not?'" Thomas writes that the official was "silent" on the portion of the item alleging that Guantanamo Bay interrogators had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet. This is Newsweek's way of saying: hey, don't get mad at us, we showed due diligence.

See, this too can be blamed on the Bush administration. It turns out that the Bush administration does a very sloppy job of editing smear jobs of it that the media generously allow it to examine before publication. The Bush administration could have saved Rather from himself by saying, "Dan, you are going forward with a forgery." But it just callously let him use it. And now that the administration didn't save Newsweek from itself by editing its previewed Periscope item about how their interrogators flush the Koran down toilets at Guantanamo Bay it looks like this callousness has hardened into habit.

Rich Lowry isn't feeling the need to stick up for "Spiky" Isikoff either:

How many stories has Newsweek written about the Bush administration allegedly "skewing intelligence" by relying on raw, insufficiently sourced data? How many times has it lamented that these mistakes have hurt the U.S. abroad? Too many to count.


What would be funny if it weren't so tragic is that some of them were authored by reporters Michael Isikoff and John Barry, the very duo that has itself dealt the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan a blow by stretching poorly sourced information into a false report about the deliberate desecration of the Koran by U.S. interrogators.

Isikoff and Barry wrote in the May 9 edition: "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." They continued that "these findings (are) expected in an upcoming report by the U.S. Southern Command [SouthCom] in Miami." Based on the report, destabilizing and deadly anti-U.S. riots broke out in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The report gave the impression that (1) FBI e-mails from Gitmo mentioned the Koran-flushing incident; (2) the incident had been confirmed; and (3) it was about to appear in a U.S. government report. All of these claims are, according to the Pentagon, false (which is not to say that nothing bad ever happened at Gitmo).

No one is perfect — not even the brilliant Mike Isikoff — but this is a telling error. One government official told Isikoff that he had seen the Koran-desecrating incident in the forthcoming Gitmo report. Newsweek tried to confirm this. But a spokesman for SouthCom refused comment because it is an ongoing investigation. Another Defense official attempted to correct one error unrelated to the Koran desecration, but didn't comment on the rest. With this solid nonconfirmation in hand, Newsweek ran with its explosive single-sourced item.

Once people started dying, Isikoff's original source said he couldn't be sure that he had read about the incident in the SouthCom report. Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker issued a weaselly statement saying that "we regret that we got any part of our story wrong," without detailing what the errors were. Nor did he forthrightly apologize — although Newsweek was part of the press pack demanding that President Bush acknowledge and apologize for his errors during last year's presidential campaign.

And of course they negotiated a sweetheart deal with the Kerry campaign to not let its embeds report until after the election.

Paul Marshall wonders how Newsweek could be so clueless:

Riots broke out throughout Afghanistan, mobs attacked government and aid-organization offices, and 15 people have died so far. Anti-American demonstrations have taken took place from north Africa to Indonesia.

Sheikh Sayed Tantawi, the head of Al-Azhar in Cairo, the major center of Sunni learning, called the purported desecration “a great crime,” while Egypt’s mufti, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, called it “an unforgivable crime” and “aggression” on Islam’s “sacred values.” The Gulf Cooperation Council, a set of American allies, called for the “harshest punishment” so that “the dignity of Muslims” could be preserved. Officials in Gaza and Iran also waded in.

This weekend, Abdul Fatah Fayeq, the senior judicial figure in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province, read out a statement from 300 Muslim clerics stating that President Bush should hand the culprits over to an Islamic country for punishment or else “we will launch a jihad against America.”

Meanwhile, in the face of Pentagon denials, Newsweek has begun backtracking. Newsweek seemed to have had doubts about the report from the beginning, since they ran it not as a straight news story but as a squiblet in the “Periscope” section. Now, in the May 23 issue, editor Mark Whitaker admits that their sourcing was suspect and stated “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.” In the same issue, Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas is more forthright, asking “How did NEWSWEEK get its facts wrong?”

Equally disturbing is the fact that Newsweek reporters seemed to have little idea how explosive such a story would be. While noting that, to Muslims, desecrating the Koran “is especially heinous,” Thomas looks for explanations, including “extremist agitators,” of why protest and rioting spread throughout the world, and maintains that it was at Imram Khan’s press conference that “the spark was apparently lit.” He confesses that after “so many gruesome reports of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, the vehemence of feeling around this case came as something of a surprise.”

What planet do these people live on that they are surprised by something so entirely predictable? Anybody with a little knowledge could have told them it was likely that people would die as a result of the article. Remember Salman Rushdie?

James Dunnigan thinks it will happen again, inevitably:

Newsweek, like most American media, is known to have higher standards than al Qaeda propagandists. But not that high. Like al Qaeda and the Taliban, Newsweek needs appealing headlines to survive. With so much at stake, there’s a tendency to avoid scrutinizing a hot story too closely. In most cases, a bad call causes a little embarrassment, and is quickly forgotten. But in this case you have dead people and putting American troops at risk. Actually, the Koran desecration story had been mentioned twice before in major American media (the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.) Nothing happened as a result, so maybe the Newsweek editor was confident that nothing bad would happen this time. But playing with fire will eventually lead to tragedy. The Newsweek story was picked up by a Pakistani politician, who made a lot of noise with it, that led to the deaths and unrest in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Taliban base their claim to power on religion. The Taliban is the defender of Islam, and the Newsweek story made Taliban recruiting easier. More guys with guns will now come out and join the groups of Taliban running around and fighting with American troops. It’s called “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” It’s been a problem in every American war since the development of mass media (just before the American Civil War.) The media usually pleads ignorance to how these things play out. Often, this defense is valid. It’s possible that the Newsweek reporters and editors working on this story were not aware of the effort American interrogators had made to prevent al Qaeda and Taliban suspects from painting Americans as anti-Moslem. Prisoners in Guantanamo were given Korans, chaplains and every opportunity to practice their religion. Newsweek wrote about this. The mythical prudent journalist would wonder why, after all this effort to keep religion out of the interrogation process, someone could get away with desecrating a Koran. But prudent journalism doesn’t keep a newsmagazine in business. Even in wartime, some stories are too good to pass up, or scrutinize too closely. Survival is at stake. It’s business.

It will happen again, although, for the moment, Journalists will now take the pledge to sin no more. But it won’t last. It never does. Shown a big story, the temptation is always there to not look too closely, and just run with it. It’s made worse by the growing number of media outlets, and the growing influence of entrepreneurial web media, especially blogs. Many journalists do try and check out these hot, but suspicious, stories, beyond getting government officials (who are as often as clueless as the people questioning them) to vouch for something. StrategyPage writers are regularly called by journalists, to comment about the veracity of interesting, but suspect, stories. Many such stories are promptly shot down, usually on the basis of obvious (to a historian or someone familiar with how the military operates) reasons. Too often, those calls are not made. Sometimes it’s because of deadline pressures, sometimes because the journalist does not want to see the story get discredited too soon. For a lot of these stories, there’s a big upside, and not much of a downside. The news consumers don’t have much of a collective memory. Journalists know that. Make a mistake, count the cash, make an apology and move on.

Journalists also know that few stories make a lasting impression on a lot of people. How many people remember CNNs 1998 Tailwind story? This one asserted that American troops used nerve gas in Vietnam, to kill American soldiers who had defected to the enemy. CNN retracted the story when thousands of Vietnam veterans, journalists and military historians began to punch holes in it.

Tailwind was a different matter, as it was a major TV news production. That’s just asking for it, if you are wrong. Tailwind probably couldn’t happen today, the Internet allows too many people, knowledgeable people, to compare notes too quickly and instantly discredit something that doesn’t pass the smell test. But the temptation remains, despite all those bloggers and experts lying in wait on the net. The game may have gotten more dangerous for journalists, but it isn’t over, not if you want to remain employed as a journalist.

No, I actually think Newsweek will be hurt by this, and its circulation will take a solid hit. CNN never really recovered from Tailwind, which helped cement the rise of the Fox News Channel. Too many Americans still love America to let them go unpunished in the marketplace, and al Qaeda won't buy enough magazines to make up the loss.

William F. Buckley weighs in:

In the alleged matter of the Koran and the toilet, there was no immediate intervention by military authorities, quite the opposite. For one thing, stories of desecration of the Koran had been circulating for two years, and were apparently met with an appropriate skepticism. The same military that provides swaddling clothes to protect the Koran is not likely simultaneously to engage in a deliberate profanation of the sacred book. So much did this attitude prevail — that allegations of desecration were implausible — that when the Newsweek article appeared, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at first dismissed the suggestion that anti-American rioting in Pakistan and Afghanistan was traceable to reported U.S. practices at Guantanamo. It wasn't until the White House reacted to evidence that riots were being ascribed to the Newsweek article that a direct connection was made, and U.S. mortification set in. Scott McClellan of the White House adopted a shrewd line in his protest. It was that since such a desecration by U.S. military was unthinkable, therefore the reporting of it had to be false!

This then moved the camera’s eye back to Newsweek. For some very tense hours there, management attempted to be informed by, and to abide by, the resources of the English language, which assigns different meanings, sometimes only slightly different, to different words.

Newsweek began by reporting that an “error” had been made. An unnamed U.S. official had reported the desecration to investigative reporter Michael Isikoff. He, in collaboration with the magazine's national security correspondent, deemed the source reliable, and therefore produced the story, which the magazine printed. Subsequent investigation persuaded the editor, Mark Whitaker, that there were insufficient grounds for believing that the desecrations had been done. He therefore disavowed the story, regretting that it had been published.

But that wasn't enough for the critics, who now included dignitaries close to pro-U.S. chiefs of state in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They clamored for more than Newsweek's regret. They wanted a "retraction." Newsweek hesitated here, on the reasonable assumption that just as the magazine was wrong to proceed to publish the story without sufficient foundation, it would be wrong, without sufficient foundation, to take an Orwellian step into "retracting" it. But, understandably, the magazine yielded the point, even though the difference between regretting a story and retracting it is more than merely semantic. Newsweek was not being asked to take the position that because blasphemy is wrong, a report that it had taken place was derivatively wrong. The author of the story, Mr. Isikoff, might have been reminded of the skepticism with which he was met when, seven years ago, he said that the president of the United States was having sex with an intern.

That's the crux of the issue, isn't it?

When faced with strong credible evidence of a Democratic president's adultery with an intern, Isikoff and his magazine caught the vapors. But given the chance to lay gloves on a Republican president, in a time of war, despite the drubbing Dan Rather and his cohorts had taken just months before for going to press with a murkily-sourced story, Isikoff and his editors had no qualms this time.

I wonder why?

Besides the obvious Bush-hatred, Jonah Goldberg wonders about the anti-Americanism of Newsweek:

Goodness knows that when investigators were picking through the rubble at Ground Zero and the Pentagon, the American public joined their hands in hopeful prayer that this heinous crime had been perpetrated by radical factions of Up With People and the Birmingham Alabama Garden Club because none of us want to upset the delicate China dolls of the Arab world by suggesting that jihadists are more likely to murder innocents than outfits like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or Ducks Unlimited.

Yes, yes, the irony is rich that for all the bleating from the blame-America crowd about how this war or that invasion will ignite the “street” in the Muslim world it ended up being a ten-line item in the “Periscope” section of Newsweek. But that’s life.

Call me crazy but if we’re talking about insults to Islam, I’d have a lot more respect for the “Muslim street” if there were just a few more riots against jihadists for equating beheadings, terrorist attacks, hosannas for the Holocaust, and random slaughter on the streets of Amsterdam with a faithful reading of the Koran.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a realist about some of this stuff. I don’t think the U.S. should go out of its way to offend Islam. Indeed, I do think we should, wherever possible or necessary, show as much respect as we can to ordinary Muslims everywhere. If there’s one lesson we can all take from the Newsweek scandal it’s that we live in a global media market which imperfectly and unevenly filters information across the globe. Small things can be made big by al Jazeera and Newsweek alike. But that doesn’t mean being “sensitive” is more important than winning. As Victor Davis Hanson has written many times, victory buys a lot more respect than condescension.

Which gets me to my real problem with Newsweek. At this point nobody disputes that Newsweek messed up. The only arguments are about the magnitude of their mistake and the motives behind it. I can’t know their motives, but my guess is that Michael Isikoff was more motivated by a reporter’s desire to break a story than by some Left-wing anti-Americanism.

But what on earth was gained by Newsweek’s decision to publish the story — whether it was true or not? Were we unaware that interrogators at Gitmo aren’t playing bean bag with detainees? To me the similarities with the Abu Ghraib are greatest not in terms of the abuse but in terms of the media’s unreflective willingness to undermine the war on terror. We saw the photos from Abu Ghraib on the nightly news and in the newspapers far, far more than we saw video of American leaping to their doom from the top of the Trade Towers. Why? Well, according to the Brahmins of the media, it would be irresponsible to stir American passions with such inflammatory images. But the relentless gray strobe light of images showing Arab men in dog collars and black hoods was necessary to inform the public — even though the abuses were already being investigated by the proper authorities. In other words, American passions are to be feared and tamped down on whenever possible, while there’s nothing too worrisome about inciting Arab and Muslim passions, even when that attitude plays perfectly into the hands of the people we’re fighting.

I just can’t help but think the media’s priorities are backward.

Given the beating Saddam's troops, the Taliban, and al Qaeda took, I'd be a lot more worried about ticking off Americans than "the Muslim street", my friends. Our armed forces have even found ways to kill people without the mess, to suit the weak sisters at Newsweek and their skirt-wetting compadres amidst the Hair Helmet Hamas.

Finally, Ann Coulter's worked her high dudgeon clear up to stratospheric dudgeon over this:

When ace reporter Michael Isikoff had the scoop of the decade, a thoroughly sourced story about the president of the United States having an affair with an intern and then pressuring her to lie about it under oath, Newsweek decided not to run the story. Matt Drudge scooped Newsweek, followed by The Washington Post.

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When Isikoff had a detailed account of Kathleen Willey's nasty sexual encounter with the president in the Oval Office, backed up with eyewitness and documentary evidence, Newsweek decided not to run it. Again, Matt Drudge got the story.

When Isikoff was the first with detailed reporting on Paula Jones' accusations against a sitting president, Isikoff's then-employer The Washington Post -- which owns Newsweek -- decided not to run it. The American Spectator got the story, followed by the Los Angeles Times.

So apparently it's possible for Michael Isikoff to have a story that actually is true, but for his editors not to run it.

Why no pause for reflection when Isikoff had a story about American interrogators at Guantanamo flushing the Quran down the toilet? Why not sit on this story for, say, even half as long as NBC News sat on Lisa Meyers' highly credible account of Bill Clinton raping Juanita Broaddrick?

Newsweek seems to have very different responses to the same reporter's scoops. Who's deciding which of Isikoff's stories to run and which to hold? I note that the ones that Matt Drudge runs have turned out to be more accurate -- and interesting! -- than the ones Newsweek runs. Maybe Newsweek should start running everything past Matt Drudge.

Somehow Newsweek missed the story a few weeks ago about Saudi Arabia arresting 40 Christians for "trying to spread their poisonous religious beliefs." But give the American media a story about American interrogators defacing the Quran, and journalists are so appalled there's no time for fact-checking -- before they dash off to see the latest exhibition of "Piss Christ."

Who knew H.L. Mencken would be reincarnated as a pie-dodging willowy blonde in heels?