Media Watchdog Compares Newsweek Controversy to Rathergate

(CNSNews.com) -- A media watchdog group blasted Newsweek Monday for refusing to issue a retraction of its report that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushed a Koran down a toilet despite the fact that the claim came from an anonymous source who could not substantiate it.

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell compared Newsweek's journalistic integrity to that of CBS News during the National Guard controversy.

"Newsweek is guilty of pushing a false story they knew was unconfirmed but wanted to believe was true, and this time the result was tragic," said Bozell, who is also founder of the Cybercast News Service.

"The Newsweek story is the same CBS/National Guard 'gotcha' journalism story all over again, only this time with riots and deaths as the deeply regrettable consequences," added Bozell.

"This is the painful legacy of news organizations whose anti-Bush agenda predisposes them to running negative stories they want to believe are true, even if they have no evidence of their veracity," he said.

"Newsweek is making a terrible story even worse by refusing to retract it, and telling the New York Times: 'We are not retracting anything.' This is shades of Dan Rather and CBS continuing to tell the public their National Guard story was true until somebody disproved it."

The magazine has refused to retract the story, but issued an apology, saying they regretted that they "got any part of our story wrong." It also extended its sympathies to the victims of violence that erupted as a result of the story. Fifteen people were killed and over a hundred injured in Afghanistan because of Newsweek's story.

I was flipping tbrough the channels last night on the way to FOX and stopped at MSNBC because Olberdouche was covering Newsweekgate. I don't know why I was suprised at what I heard, but was disgusted nonetheless. Olberdouche basically was taking the approach of "sure this story may have been retracted, but it abuse does happen at Gitmo, thus, this story could have been true and incidents like this probably did happen at some point."

Holy shit!!! Holy fake but accurate Batman!!! Still, that appears to be the approach the entire MSM is taking. The MSM is trying desparately to sweep this under the rug. Witness USA Today's front page. Splattered on its front page is a hit piece on the fillibuster showdown that is looming. Over on the side in significantly smaller print is: "Newsweek Retracts Story." Well, at least it made the front page, but it is still indicative of how fast the MSM wants to move on.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan dismissed on Tuesday as inadequate an apology and retraction by the Newsweek magazine of a report that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Koran.

The report in the magazine's May 9 issue sparked protests across the Muslim world, from Afghanistan, where 16 people were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan, India, Indonesia and Gaza.

"The apology and retraction are not enough," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told Reuters.

"They should understand the sentiments of Muslims and think 101 times before publishing news which hurt feelings of Muslims."

The magazine retracted the story on Monday.

Newsweek said in its May 23 edition that the information had come from a "knowledgeable government source" who had said a military report on abuse at Guantanamo Bay had found interrogators had flushed at least one copy of the Koran down a toilet in a bid to make detainees talk.

But the source later told the magazine he could not be certain he had seen an account of the Koran incident in the military report and that it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts, Newsweek said.

The Newsweek retraction came as the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department all strongly criticized the report and said it had damaged Washington's image abroad.

Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, has called on Washington to conduct an inquiry and to share results with Islamabad.

The Pentagon has said that an investigation remained open into allegations contained in the report.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of a hardline six-party Islamic alliance in Pakistan, said Newsweek's retraction was unlikely to cool tempers in the Muslim world.

"Whatever magazine has done now is under pressure (from the U.S. government)," he said. "It has not denied what it has reported and many people freed from Guantanamo Bay have narrated the same thing."

He referred to a report in the Tuesday edition of the Pakistani daily The News that quoted Hafiz Ehsan Saeed, a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay, as saying that the Koran was routinely desecrated at the U.S. prison.

Saeed was released from Guantanamo Bay in September but has since been held in a Pakistani jail in Rawalpindi, a garrison town close to Islamabad. His reported remarks could not be independently verified.

How exactly do you flush a book down a toilet? Are the toilets that different there that a book would fit down one?

Newsweek should have been very suspicious of this story to begin with.

It's like the obviously forged documents in Rathergate. Anyone looking at the facts with a reasonably critical eye is going to doubt the story and look for confirmation and a better explaination.

They didn't do that. It reaks of them knowing that the government can't disprove anonymous reports like this, so they felt they could get away with printing it if it were true or not.

They just underestimated the response from the Muslim world and are surprised that their little lie became a huge issue in which people died as a result.

So where are all those liberal trial lawyers demanding reparations in this case?

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