Posted on 05/17/2005 5:43:33 PM PDT by wagglebee
A media watchdog group blasted Newsweek for its initial refusal to issue a retraction of its report that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushed a Koran down a toilet, and 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 Media Research Center President Brent Bozell.
"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 since retracted the story, and 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.
Newsweek and MSM are "embedded" journalists for Al Qaeda.
They further compound the crime, and I use the word quite deliberately, by now trying to somehow blame pressure from the White House, and the lack of correction from the Pentagon. If the Pentagon had said "Don't run that story!" the headline would have been "US Military supresses information about desecration of Koran." Newsweek would have been all over screaming censorship... but they didn't... and Newsweek did publish a story that was false. They claim they didn't know it was false, and didn't know what would happen when they printed it. Perhaps they don't know what they are doing, and should not be relied upon as a source of news.
"The magazine has since retracted the story..."
Retraction. Bah!
Editor Whitaker said, "We're not saying it absolutely happened, but we can't say that it absolutely didn't happen either."
I see. Whatever happened to happen, happened.
You can bet if this was the work of Halliburton, Enron, Exxon, RNC, The White House, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, Free Republic, Michele Malkin, Ann Coulter or Laura Ingraham The MSM would be excoriating them
"NEWSWEEK and RATHERGATE"
A Newsweek spokesman reported today that their source was a "senior government official". They didn't specify exactly which "government", however. "Senor Government Official?: http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/3159.jpg
The twerp on Fidel's left gets around, doesn't he?
Newsweek has advertisements to sell to the liberal subscribers. CBS has advertisement commercials targeted to liberals. They know those liberals spend money they do not have by using charge cards.
Not quite, the MSM has prepared their counter attack this time as is indicated in the Drudge Report of the White House Briefing today. They will do everything they can to "prove" the evil of the military and, in the process, get as many of their American enemies killed as they can. In what I have read today, the MSM has gone over the edge IMO.
You're right. The liberal media is like a reverse toilet. The crap does the flushing.
I believe one of the Newsweak editors is a Muslim from the ME.
They will never change but let's cost them some money anyhow.
Reimposition of military censorship during time of war is the answer. It worked in WWII. It can work today. Locking up a few of the worst of the MSMites on teh resulting treason charges would surely prompt some quick career changes and reformulated editorial boards.
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