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Absolutely great letter! Isikoff is so well connected in DC circles that hardly anybody, even on Fox, will mention he's the driving force behind the latest scandal(with all the rest of his Clinton baggage), along with Evan Thomas. I heard Imus the other day say that Isikoff and Thomas had both written nonapologies, weasely 'don't blame me, it wasn't my fault' pieces for the current Newsweek. Delighted to hear that from Imus. These reporters all go to the same cocktail parties in DC. No conscience. Being connected is all important, well, if you lose your job, you call up a pal and hopefully get hired at some other magazine, newspaper. I wonder if they only turn honest when they retire, like Bernard Goldberg...maybe have his last name wrong...who wrote that great book about duplicitous reporting in the MSM, CBS, etc.. and promptly became a nonperson except at Fox.

The story was authored by famed journalist Michael Isikoff, who was first to discover the Clinton-Lewinsky affair but refused to run the story. He claimed not to trust the source, but the end result demonstrated that his decision was based on his personal allegiance to the Clinton administration. Isikoff also uncovered two rape allegations against former President Clinton, both of which he refused to share with the public.

I believe that the WaPo did run the Paula Jones story by Isikoff but ran it in the 'Style' section rather than the 'News' section...and this was a couple of weeks after the story has been splashed all over the Brit tabs. Because of the dust-up over that, Isikoff went over to Newsweak, uncovered the Lewinsky story which Newsweak editors spiked. Drudge got ahold of the story--maybe from Isikoff?--we don't know--and the rest is history.

Bogus for the letter writer to be complaining about Isikoff when the letter writer is distorting the record. Writers don't spike their own stories; editors do that.

Which is NOT to say that a whole boat load of blame isn't to be laid at Isikoff's door AND the editors at Newsweak. Ultimately, running the bogus Koran story was a Newsweak editorial decision and a very bad one.

Brave and intelligent view.
It seems however that the media as a whole has long standing exemption from full responsibility for outright lies.
The News Week Magazine reps have already cited an anonymous source which is blamed for the false story. (Long standing exemption there, I think.)
Then, the president of Afghanistan is said to have stated that the riots were the responsibility of activists who were acting on a motivation not related to the Koran story.
While this does not negate the fact that anti American propagandists in the radical element of the Muslim world will use News Weeks story to recruit more terrorists, the comment, if it is factual, will probably benefit News Week here in the US as investigations unfold.
Responsible conduct in the news media seems to be not only scarce, it seems not to be required by law.

http://www.drunkduck.com/Out_of_the_Patch/

I just posted this on another thread, but I think it is quite appropriate. A friend of mine does this comic from Iraq. Freepers will like some of his stuff. Other parts are not so good. This is a good one.