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WORD COUNT
709
MAY 25, 2004
‘NEWSWEEK’ HAS DONE
WORSE, WITH NO APOLOGY – by Jim Naureckas
“Newsweek” once ran a
sensational claim based on an anonymous source who turned out to be
completely wrong. While one can't blame the subsequent violence entirely
on this report, it's fair to say that credulous reporting like this
contributed to a climate in which many innocent Muslims died.
That inaccurate
“Newsweek” report appeared in the magazine's March 17, 2003, issue, on
the eve of the invasion of Iraq. It read in part:"Saddam could decide to
take Baghdad with him. One Arab intelligence officer interviewed by
“Newsweek” spoke of 'the green mushroom' over Baghdad–the modern-day
caliph bidding a grotesque bio-chem farewell to the land of the living
alongside thousands of his subjects as well as his enemies. Saddam wants
to be remembered. He has the means and the demonic imagination. It is up
to U.S. armed forces to stop him before he can achieve notoriety for all
time."
Unlike a more recent
“Newsweek” item, involving accusations that Guantanamo interrogators
flushed a copy of the Quran down a toilet, “Newsweek” has yet to retract
the bogus report about the "green mushroom" threat. The magazine's Quran
charge has been linked to rioting in Afghanistan and elsewhere that has
left at least 16 dead; alarmist coverage like “Newsweek's” about Saddam
Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction paved the way for an
invasion that has caused, according to the respected British medical
journal “The Lancet,” an estimated 100,000 excess deaths.
“Newsweek” was right
to retract the Quran story. The magazine claimed to have "sources" for
the information, when its subsequent descriptions of how it acquired the
story mention only a single source. But it's far from clear that
“Newsweek's” source was wrong in saying that U.S. investigators had
uncovered abuse of a Quran in the course of a recent investigation.
Similar allegations have repeatedly been made by former Guantanamo
prisoners and cited in such mainstream outlets as the “Washington Post”
and “The New York Times.”
Denials by the U.S.
military that such incidents have occurred mean little. When any
government holds prisoners in violation of international law, and denies
them access to independent counsel or human rights groups, assertions by
that government about how the prisoners are being treated can be given
little weight. Eric Saar, a former U.S. Army sergeant who served as a
translator at Guantanamo, has accused the Pentagon of engaging in
organized efforts there to deceive outsiders. Citing a new book by Saar,
the “Washington Post” reported that "the U.S. military staged the
interrogations of terrorism suspects for members of Congress and other
officials visiting the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, to make it
appear the government was obtaining valuable intelligence."
It's certainly not
the case that the Pentagon has been so attentive to Muslim sensitivities
that such treatment of a Quran would be unthinkable. The Pentagon's
deputy undersecretary for intelligence is Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who
is notorious for suggesting that Allah was "an idol" and saying that the
United States' enemies were led by "Satan," and would "only be defeated
if we come against them in the name of Jesus." It was Boykin who
reportedly ordered the coercive interrogation methods used at Guantanamo
to be used at Iraq's Abu Ghraib as well.
It has been
repeatedly said-including by “Newsweek” itself, in its initial
apology–that the magazine's source erred in saying that the Quran
incident was contained in a report for the Pentagon's Southern Command.
In fact, the original report said that the incident was "expected" to be
in the report--an expectation that could have easily been altered by the
fact that the explosive allegation became public.
“Newsweek's”
retraction of the Quran story, contrasted with the lack of any
correction of its "green mushroom" claim and other similarly erroneous
WMD coverage, is quite illustrative of the actual rules of today’s game.
These are quite different from the rules that are taught in journalism
school that supposedly govern contemporary journalism today:
·
Anonymous sources are fine, as long as they are promoting rather than
challenging official government policy.
·
It's
all right for your reporting to be completely wrong, as long as your
errors are in the service of power.
·
The
human cost of bad reporting need only be counted when people who matter
are doing the counting.
--
Jim Naurekas is
editor of “EXTRA!”, a publication of FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in
Reporting), the national media watch group that offers well-documented
criticism of media bias and censorship, based in New York City.
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