May 19, 2005
Koran Desecration at Guantanamo Bay
On May 9th Michael Isikoff and John Barry reported in Newsweek that an unnamed source had told them of “Koran desecration” which had occurred at Guantanamo Bay. It turns out that despite having been “reported very carefully, with great sensitivity and concern,” they were wrong.
Newsweek admits they didn’t know what they were talking about, but they won’t take any of it back either. Using Newsweek’s own words, the New York Times quotes Editor Mark Whitaker as saying, “We’re not retracting anything. We don’t know what the ultimate facts are.”
They “don’t know what the ultimate facts are,” but they are more than willing to report them, and now there have been dire consequences.
Reuters
The report sparked angry and violent protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan to Indonesia to Gaza. In the past week it was condemned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and by the Arab League.On Sunday, Afghan Muslim clerics threatened to call for a holy war against the United States.
This isn’t egg on Newsweek’s face–those are real people who died because of their careless “reporting.” There are billions of mainstream Muslims in the world and the last thing we need is for them to declare a holy war against us. The Bush administration has gone out of its way to stress the point that the US is not involved in a war against Islam, but rather against a few extremists. Newsweek’s report has made that look like a lie. Their cheap, unreliable, reporting, by people with little credibility, has resulted in an international disaster. This is not a first for main stream media. What will the consequences be?
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