Irresponsible reporting kills 15

Honestly, what the hell was Newsweek thinking? Newsweek magazine has apologised for an inaccurate report on the treatment of terror suspects that triggered several days of rioting in Afghanistan and other countries in which at least 15 people died. The report claimed that American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, while questioning detainees, had desecrated the Koran and in one alleged incident, an interrogator had flushed a copy of Islam's holy book down a toilet. In the most recent edition, Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker said that staff were "re-examining the incident". "We regret that we got any part of our story wrong and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the US soldiers caught in the midst," he wrote. Mr Whitaker said that the Government official, quoted anonymously about the Koran being flushed down a toilet in order to humiliate the detainees being interrogated, had since told Newsweek that he was "unsure" about the origin of the claim. Are our news agencies really this dumb? Dan Rather and CBS, Eason Jordan and CNN, and now Newsweek. When did the journalists decide that it's their duty to create news stories instead of just reporting actual events? And this time the resulting anger in the Middle East lead to at least 15 people dying. Nothing else has forced the media to take a good long hard look at itself, maybe that a written, false report actually killed people this time will catalyze some changes in journalism. UPDATE: The apology they posted was pretty pathetic. Four paragraghs of excuses and the apology is the last sentence. UPDATE 2: Cox & Forkum has this great piece: UPDATE 3: Chrenkoff, who's been watching the Middle East so closely for so long is particularly saddened to see one lousy frigging article possibly ruin years worth of work: We all make mistakes - including myself - fortunately none of my lapses have managed to plunge a whole country into riots, resulting in many deaths and numerous injuries, send every country between Tunisia to Indonesia into a frenzy of pronouncements and demonstrations, embarrass the government of the United States and set back good relations and diplomatic efforts with the Islamic world. I guess blogs still have a long way to go. Personally, having been documenting "Good news from Afghanistan" for a year now, it pains me to see that a lot of good-will patiently built up on the ground by the Coalition forces over the past three years has been arguably undone by a few sentences in a news magazine. UPDATE 4: Froggy is spitting mad too. This type of reporting is putting our soldiers into a bigger shitstorm than they were already in. One thing I wonder though, I saw a hard copy of the Newsweek magazine in question, and the article with the Koran bit is fairly small sideshow piece, not a main article. I don't get how such a small and insignificant piece upset so many Muslims worldwide. Is al-Jazeera scouring our media looking for stuff like this to blow out of proportion in order to destroy the fragile democracies that we just help get started? Granted it should never have been printed without confirmation of some sort, but why so much focus by the Arab world on this? As pissed off as the Arab world is you'd think that Dubya penned that himself.