Responsibility in Media

It's pretty amazing (or maybe I shouldn't be so surprised) that this post concerns the second of two stories that have been reported incorrectly for the past week. The first was the story of Dave Chappelle and the erroneous report that he had checked himself into a mental health facility. As we found out this morning, the reports of his breakdown were exaggerated.

The second story to be debunked today concerns reports that guards and interrogators of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated copies of the Koran. This was reported in Newsweek last week. Erroneously.

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

But Newsweek said 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.

The worst part about this incident is that the story was picked up by major world media and it spread this inaccurate story to Muslim countries who promptly rioted causing numerous deaths.

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.

Well isn't that just great! I'm all for the media acting as a check and balance for government, but you can't wish a story to be true and print it. I am really starting to wonder what's more important to some of the major media outlets: the truth or trying to impugn a war that some of them disagree with.

If this story is true, than by all means it should be reported, but there is a very simple matter of fact checking that goes into writing a news story. I'm not a journalist and have never taken a journalism class but I do know that I wouldn't report on controversial news and expect it to be credible without some corroboration. That would be something I would expect a tabloid to do. But maybe I'm just naive about journalism.

And what was the reaction of Newsweek?

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst."

Newsweek, which said opponents of the Afghan government including remnants of the Taliban had used its report to fan unrest in the country, said it was not contemplating disciplinary action against staff.

"This was reported very carefully, with great sensitivity and concern, and we'll continue to report on it," said Newsweek Managing Editor John Meecham. "We have tried to be transparent about exactly what happened, and we leave it to the readers to judge us."

So they are not responsible in any way? It's up to the consumer to determine if they are at fault? Didn't they learn anything from what happened to Dan Rather? Read more opinion here.