Reaction: The Deadly Newsweek Riots

Picture credit: http://www.jimcarreyonline.com
Herein a collection of reactions to the Newsweek Riots. But first, it's worth noting the pronounced 'circle the wagons' effect we're seeing. Former Time Magazine bureau chief Margaret Carlson is simply the latest (ABC and CNN included) of those defending a horrid practice in her latest offering: "Newsweek Blunder Doesn't Absolve White House". Yes, I'm sure it's all the administration's fault... or perhaps Karl Rove is behind the curtain...

When ace reporter Michael Isikoff had the scoop of the decade, a thoroughly sourced story about the president of the United States having an affair with an intern and then pressuring her to lie about it under oath, Newsweek decided not to run the story. Matt Drudge scooped Newsweek, followed by The Washington Post. When Isikoff had a detailed account of Kathleen Willey's nasty sexual encounter with the president in the Oval Office, backed up with eyewitness and documentary evidence, Newsweek decided not to run it. Again, Matt Drudge got the story... ...Why no pause for reflection when Isikoff had a story about American interrogators at Guantanamo flushing the Quran down the toilet?

Coulter

First, we all can agree that flushing a Koran down a toilet, if physically possible, would be both insensitive and rude, though Westerners generally have a higher tolerance threshold for such offenses. Put it this way: You could flush a Bible down the toilet in front of Goober in Kabul, and it's unlikely that Mayberry suddenly would be awash in blood.

Parker

Back in November 2003, Newsweek complained in a cover story that Vice President Dick Cheney "bought into shady assumptions" leading into the Iraq war, partly because of his "dire view of the terrorist threat." In its Koran story, Newsweek itself bought into shady assumptions, partly because of the media's dire view of the U.S. military. And so the media party continues its decline.

Lowry

If the forged documents at CBS and the phony story at Newsweek were just isolated mistakes, that would be one thing... [this week's ceremony honoring] Dan Rather makes it easier for the public to see that the forged documents and the fake story were not just odd things that happened to a couple of people but were symptomatic of a mindset... Someone referred to the story about George Bush's National Guard service as "too good to check." ... That is almost certainly what happened with the story about Americans flushing the Koran down the toilet at the Guantanamo prison. ...All this goes back to a more fundamental problem with the mainstream media. Too many journalists see their work as an opportunity to promote their own pet political notions, rather than a responsibility to inform the public and let their readers and viewers decide for themselves.

Sowell

How many eerie parallels are there between the CBS scandal and the Newsweek scandal? 1. Both stories caused liberal media types to hunt for years to prove the urban legends dear to the hearts of the Bush-bashers... 2. Both stories relied on a single anonymous source. In CBS's case, he was "unimpeachable"; in Newsweek's, "reliable." ... 3. Both outlets made comical claims about their professionalism in a time of crisis... 4. Both stories were incorrectly declared to be "confirmed" by outside sources... 5. In both cases, the story, left unchallenged, would prove highly damaging to the Bush administration... 6. When both stories crumbled, the media outlets were initially reluctant to retract anything... 7. But even after the official retraction, the spin control continued. Dan Rather continued to insist, and other reporters followed suit, that while the documents may have been fabricated, the National Guard story was true. Newsweek's liberal media friends united around the theme that Newsweek will be proven right, that Koran-flushing was not "beyond the realm of possibility," as CNN's Anderson Cooper put it. On "Nightline," ABC's John Donvan intoned, "What really goes on at Guantanamo Bay, no one really knows."...

Bozell

The nature of the war -- a battle against faceless terrorism instead of enemy armies -- changes the nature of the job. The same for the seeming inexhaustibility of the present enemy. On and on this enterprise goes; where it stops, nobody knows. Factor all that into the equation and still excuses aren't possible for a media establishment that displays, through what it tells and what it omits to tell, its dark suspicions of the policy to which its country has committed itself. So Newsweek "regrets" having gotten "part" of its Guantanamo story wrong! It's a start, no doubt. But, oh, the cost of it in terms we haven't begun to tote up.

Murchison