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Chastised by DC Leaders, Newsweek Backs Off Islam-Inflaming Report

by Chad Groening
May 18, 2005
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(AgapePress) - A media watchdog group believes the unusually strong reaction from the White House and the Pentagon played a major role in Newsweek magazine's decision to retract a story it published that recently fueled anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan, which led to an outbreak of violence that left 15 people dead.

Newsweek published a story that claimed U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet in an effort to get suspected terrorists to talk. Furor erupted in the international Muslim community after the story circulated, with rioting and violence ensuing.

Later, however, after the Pentagon announced that it found no evidence to support the allegations, the magazine admitted to sloppy reporting. An editor with Newsweek told Associated Press the magazine was retracting the story based on what he and others "know now."

Tim Graham of the Media Research Center (MRC) feels Newsweek is finally getting real. "Their original response, which was to say, 'We're not retracting anything,' was clearly going to put them right into the Dan Rather category of not being willing to acknowledge reality," he says. "I think that sunk in, and they decided the right way to do it is to retract and then try to put the pieces back together."

But Graham also believes the strong rebuke from the Bush administration was a major factor in Newsweek's decision. "I think the surprising thing in this whole story was the harsh reaction of the Pentagon and the White House," he notes, "because, usually, in the face of all kinds of media criticism, they come across as sort of milquetoasts."

According to the MRC spokesman, the Republican White House and Pentagon leaders ordinarily react in a fairly passive way to the slings and arrows of the mainstream press. "So for them to come out and say in a harsh way, 'This is a damaging story: You've done damage, you've misrepresented it, and you've hurt the cause of America in the Muslim world' -- for them to come out and sharply criticize Newsweek really does stand out from what we normally see and hear from the administration," the media expert says.

Graham believes the popular news weekly pulled away from its earlier report when it saw itself facing the same kind of credibility problem CBS anchor Dan Rather faced with the forged memo story during the 2004 presidential election campaign. The MRC's director says it will probably take a little time for Newsweek to recover from these events, and he suspects that some subscribers may not come back.


Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

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