Newsweek Attempts some Self Analysis

Newsweek's coverage of how their misrepresentation of the Guantanamo investigation caused riots across the Moslem world offers some details regarding the most irresponsible piece of journalism since Rathergate.

According to Newsweek correspondent Evan Thomas, the "confidential Pentagon source" suddenly lost his sense of veracity after the rioting broke out.

Also according to Thomas, the writer who put together the original, inflammatory piece, Michael Isikoff, submitted his work for review by another correspondent who, I presume, was higher on the editorial food chain. That correspondent was John Barry. Isikoff got his story from a "senior Pentagon official". John Barry took Isikoff's draft and showed it to (you guessed it) another unnamed "senior Pentagon official".

Correspondent Thomas goes into a long explanation about how Barry's anonymous fact checker quibbled with one detail of the report, but said nothing about the Koran in the toilet business. Thomas emphasizes that the senior official did not intend to deceive, but was not thoroughly familiar with the Guantanamo investigation that Newsweek wanted the dirt on.

That is, Newsweek wants to blame their gaff on the government sources, as if the government is responsible for what gets leaked by subversive employees. That makes sense... if you're a moonbat.

But why was Newsweek so quick to believe the sources?

Thomas discusses that as well. He describes all the other allegations made over the past three years regarding Gitmo. He discusses two other "Koran in the flusher" allegations and a story of how a guard once knocked down a Koran which was inside a bag hanging from a cell ceiling. Ooooh, what a meanie!

In other words, the original story was "fake but accurate". And to prove it, Newsweek just offered more of the inflammatory stuff even though it is even less well substantiated than the original, false report.

Toward the end of the article, Thomas talks about how the poor economy in Afghanistan made that place more susceptible to unrest than the U.S. military expected. He attributes the poor economy to U.S. efforts to stifle the resurrection of the growth of the poppies used to manufacture illegal narcotics. (Translation: BAD Americans! Too dumb to expect an uprising and too stuck-up too allow narcotics).

Summary, Newsweek blames the government and not their lefty reporters for getting a story wrong which was intended to hurt our government. They claim their sources were bad, that we should have known that the Afghans were unhappy, that we are to blame for the Afghan riots triggered by their story, and the story was basically true even if it was all wrong.

Now that my head is done spinning, I have one more question for Newsweek.

If their journalists are so smart regarding the Moslem world, why didn't they know what the consequences of their little article would be.

P.S.: Michelle Malkin also has a good analysis here. So does Austin Bay.