| Newsweek is trying to defuse its information bomb In yesterday's issue of the American magazine Newsweek, the editor of this publication, Mark Whitaker, was forced to admit that a week ago his media lied. To use politically correct language, it published partially erroneous information. In the May 9 issue of Newsweek, in a brief report on abuses at the Guantanamo Bay base where militants captured in Afghanistan are being held, Michael Isikoff and John Barry alleged that American interrogators ostentatiously placed the Koran on the toilet in front of their captives. The journalists referred to data from an as yet unpublished report from the US Army Southern Command, which investigated the facts of possible abuses. Now Whitaker was forced to apologize due to the fact that some of the information in the text was false, and expressed his “warm feelings to the victims of violence and the American soldiers at the center of the events.”
The story of the installation of a book sacred to Muslims in a latrine caused something like a world revolution in the East. It all started in Afghanistan, where last week rumors of inappropriate behavior by American investigators sparked mass demonstrations, public burnings of American flags and clashes between protesters and authorities. Seven people died in these clashes and many were wounded. Then protests spread to Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia, Palestine, Malaysia, various Islamic organizations called for the condemnation and punishment of those responsible for desecration of the Koran. Opponents of the United States very skillfully took advantage of this publication and cleverly provoked a wave of anti-American protests throughout the Muslim world.
Whitaker's apology is intended to smooth over the devastating impact of the note. The editor, however, did not dare to take the blame completely and disavow the message entirely. Mark Whitaker refers to the fact that the information came from a “knowledgeable government source,” and that Newsweek consulted with two US Department of Defense officials before sending it to press. True, one of them refused to comment on the text, and the other drew attention to another part of the note. However, the original source of journalists in the Pentagon also disavowed the scandal: according to Whitaker, last week he told Newsweek that he was no longer sure whether he saw evidence of desecration of the Koran in the mentioned report, and that perhaps this information was for example, only in drafts.
The government, through Scott McClellan, President Bush's press secretary, turned the tables on journalists. He said, “If Newsweek admits that some of the information was incorrect, then refusing to disavow the article is puzzling,” and chided the magazine for not following “journalistic standards.”
This story is surprising at some of the “naivety” of Newsweek reporters and editors. Izikoff and Barry, describing the procedure for desecrating the Koran, could not help but understand that this story could explode the situation in countries where Islamic fundamentalism is strong. To publish such an accusation against the American prison guards at Guantanamo, without having a single supporting document, is, at the very least, imprudent. Moreover, the ill-fated note takes up only two paragraphs and was placed in the “Periscope” section, where the editors send routine messages - messages that do not deserve a more or less detailed story, and minor news. Apparently, neither the journalists nor the production editor simply thought about the fact that they sent to print an information “bomb-error”, the explosion of which caused enormous damage to US troops in Afghanistan, and the pro-Western government of Karzai, and the entire image of America in the Islamic world.
However, apparently, the journalists were also let down by their lack of attention to the Muslim value system. They devoted only a couple of lines to the desecration of the Koran, while immediately after this they described in detail the humiliation of the personal dignity of the prisoners. For a Westerner, brought up with unconditional respect for human rights, this is a much more shocking fact. But Islamic theologians who called for jihad seemed much less concerned. The anti-American riot in Afghanistan and calls for a holy war were not caused by mockery of the prisoners, but precisely by the fact that the jailers allegedly violated the book given by Allah. Let us note that even now neither the White House, nor the Pentagon, nor Newsweek, shifting the blame onto each other for false information about the Koran in the toilet, have not commented in a single word on the allegations of Izikoff and Barry that jailers led prisoners wearing collars on dog dogs. leashes. Vladimir DZAGUTO |
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