Newsweek Retools Policies About Sources

Washington Post ^ | 5/22/05 | DESMOND BUTLER

[Valin]

NEW YORK -- Newsweek has adopted new policies for the use of anonymous sources, a week after retracting a report that claimed investigators had found evidence the Quran was desecrated by interrogators at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay.

In a letter to readers appearing in Monday's edition, Newsweek Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Richard Smith apologized for the report and said the magazine will raise standards for anonymous sourcing.

We got an important story wrong, and honor requires us to admit our mistake and redouble our efforts to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again," he wrote.

Two of the magazine's top editors will be assigned sole responsibility for approving the use of anonymous sources, and the magazine will stop using the phrase "sources said" to attribute information in stories, Smith said.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

FoxNews was talking about Newsweek, but there was no mention of the American flag in a garbage can. Time to turn up the heat!