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The National Society of Newspaper Columnists still wants Diana Griego Erwin as a speaker next month, despite her Wednesday resignation from The Sacramento Bee over allegations that the paper could not verify the existence of some people mentioned in her columns. Erwin, who has denied fabricating sources, told the NSNC today that she's still coming to its June 23-26 conference in Grapevine, Texas. She is scheduled to speak the morning of June 24. "She's one of the best columnists in America -- and she has a real story to tell now," said Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist/conference host Dave Lieber, who...

IT WAS front-page news this week when Newsweek retracted a report claiming that a US interrogator in Guantanamo had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet. Everywhere it was noted that Newsweek's story had sparked widespread Muslim rioting, in which at least 17 people were killed. But there was no mention of deadly protests triggered in recent years by comparable acts of desecration against other religions. No one recalled, for example, that American Catholics lashed out in violent rampages in 1989, after photographer Andres Serrano's ''Piss Christ" -- a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine -- was...

Should you read Unequal Protection: The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States 2005, an annual report issued last week by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), you’ll learn how the Muslim experience in America is worsening. Specifically, the number of “anti-Muslim hate crimes in the United States” has gone up dramatically: from 42 cases in 2002, to 93 cases in 2003, to 141 in 2004. This news prompted headlines in the mainstream media. “Muslims Report 50% Increase in Bias Crimes,” announced the New York Times; “Crimes, Complaints Involving Muslims Rise,” broadcast the Washington Post; and “Muslims Cite...

We've talked about the bogus Newsweek desecration story for several days now, and so has the White House press corps. Yesterday, in the White House Press Room, Scott McClellan took a question about Newsweek, and said, in essence, that Newsweek ought to do all it can to correct some of the damage they did with their bogus story. Terry Moran, White House correspondent for ABC News, replied, saying that it sounded to him like Scott was trying to be the editor of Newsweek. Elizabeth Bumiller of the New York Times later quipped, very sarcastically, that maybe Scott wanted her to...

a Pew Poll, conducted by the prestigious Princeton Univerisity, found bush's approval at 43% on May 11-15. That is a very bad approval rating. Why?

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- During the 2004 presidential elections, the mainstream news media frequently engaged in bias -- especially on pro-life issues such as abortion and stem cell research. As with previous polls, a new survey confirms most members of the media voted for Democrat John Kerry over President George W. Bush. The University of Connecticut's Department of Public Policy found journalists picked Kerry over Bush by 68 percent to 25 percent. The college sampled 300 journalists, from both newspapers and TV. The poll also found that Democrats outnumber Republicans 3 to 1 and twice as many self-identified themselves as...

Media Watchdog Compares Newsweek Controversy to Rathergate By Melanie Hunter CNSNews.com Deputy Managing Editor May 17, 2005 (CNSNews.com) -- A media watchdog group blasted Newsweek Monday for refusing to issue a retraction of its report that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushed a Koran down a toilet despite the fact that the claim came from an anonymous source who could not substantiate it. Media Research Center President Brent Bozell compared Newsweek's journalistic integrity to that of CBS News during the National Guard controversy. "Newsweek is guilty of pushing a false story they knew was unconfirmed but wanted to believe was...

After a drumbeat of criticism from the Bush administration and others, Newsweek magazine yesterday went beyond an apology it issued Sunday and retracted an article published May 1 that stated that American interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had tried to rattle Muslim detainees by flushing a Koran down the toilet. The original article was blamed for inciting widespread protests and riots in the Muslim world, where desecration of the Koran is viewed as an incendiary act, and where at least 17 people were killed in the ensuing violence. "Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story...

Well, we had our Protest at Newsweek offices led by the Tri-State Chapter. We only had a handful of people because we wanted to put the pressure on right away even on short notice, but we definitely achieved our objective. Depending on how the story develops, there may be need or demand for a further demonstration. We had some great signs: Newsweek Lied, People Died Flush Newsweek! There's Lies, Damn Lies, and then HOMICIDAL REPORTING! (I forget the exact wording) and And you still WONDER why they hate us!?! We also had some cut-out bloody hands that we offered to...

May 23 issue - Did a report in NEWSWEEK set off a wave of deadly anti-American riots in Afghanistan? That's what numerous news accounts suggested last week as angry Afghans took to the streets to protest reports, linked to us, that U.S. interrogators had desecrated the Qur'an while interrogating Muslim terror suspects. We were as alarmed as anyone to hear of the violence, which left at least 15 Afghans dead and scores injured. But I think it's important for the public to know exactly what we reported, why, and how subsequent events unfolded.

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- A group of Afghan Muslim clerics have threatened to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it hands over military interrogators reported to have desecrated the Quran. The warning on Sunday came after 16 Afghans were killed and more than 100 hurt last week in the worst anti-U.S. protests across the country since U.S. forces invaded in 2001 to oust the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network. The clerics in the northeastern province of Badakhshan said they wanted U.S. President George W. Bush to handle...

Claim that the Holy book was defiled by US guards at Guantanamo Bay has incensed Muslims AT LEAST nine people were killed yesterday as a wave of anti-American demonstrations swept the Islamic world from the Gaza Strip to the Java Sea, sparked by a single paragraph in a magazine alleging that US military interrogators had desecrated the Koran. As Washington scrambled to calm the outrage, Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, promised an inquiry and punishment for any proven offenders. But at Friday prayers in the Muslim world many preachers demanded vengeance and afterwards thousands took to the streets,...

Journalists typically condemn attempts to force their colleagues to disclose anonymous sources, saying that subpoenaing reporters will discourage efforts to expose government wrongdoing. But such warnings seem like mere self-congratulation when clear evidence of wrongdoing emerges, with no anonymous sources required-- and major news outlets virtually ignore it. A leaked document that appeared in a British newspaper offered clear new evidence that U.S. intelligence was shaped to support the drive for war. Though the information rocked British Prime Minister Tony Blair's re-election campaign when it was revealed, it has received little attention in the U.S. press. The document, first revealed...

WASHINGTON, D.C., 5/11/05)- A report released today by a prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group indicates that anti-Muslim hate crimes in the United States increased by more than 50 percent in the past year, from 93 cases in 2003 to 141 in 2004. The Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) report - the only annual study of its kind - outlines 1522 incidents and experiences of anti-Muslim violence, discrimination and harassment in 2004, the highest number of Muslim civil rights cases ever recorded in the Washington-based group's annual report. (Hundreds of anti-Muslim incidents reported immediately following the 9/11 attack...

Rick Rodriguez: Griego Erwin resigns amid internal inquiry into her columns By Rick Rodriguez -- Bee Executive Editor Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, May 12, 2005 Diana Griego Erwin, whose column has appeared in this space three days a week, resigned Wednesday amid an internal inquiry into whether some people mentioned in several recent columns actually existed. During our inquiry we found we could not authenticate the existence of several people even though they were identified by name, age and sometimes by the neighborhoods in which they were reported to have lived. We used extensive online database searches as well...

Kabul: Three people were killed and at least 60 injured when police clashed with more than 5000 Afghans infuriated by reports that US soldiers had desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay prison camp. "We have two dead in our hospital and 47 wounded. Three of the people injured are in a serious condition," said Mohammed Ayob, deputy director of the public health hospital in the eastern city of Jalalabad. "The medical university hospital, the second hospital of the city, has registered one dead and 12 wounded are in hospital. Some other people with light injuries were cared for and have...

President Bush has proven to be one of the more adept and agile politicians of the modern era. Time and again, he and his political team have shown the ability to turn potential political vulnerabilities — think 9/11 — into weapons deftly applied to opponents. Democrats would do well to remember that as they gloat over two of the larger political stories out here — the fight over Social Security reform and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's ethics controversies. Friday in Falls Church, Va., the president not only condemned opponents — presumably Democrats — for fighting his Social Security proposal,...

STORIES ABOUT spat-upon Vietnam veterans are like mercury: Smash one and six more appear. It's hard to say where they come from. For a book I wrote in 1998 I looked back to the time when the spit was supposedly flying, the late 1960s and early 1970s. I found nothing. No news reports or even claims that someone was being spat on. What I did find is that around 1980, scores of Vietnam-generation men were saying they were greeted by spitters when they came home from Vietnam. There is an element of urban legend in the stories in that their...

The sloppy, inaccurate, "class-less", and potentially defamatory journalism displayed today by reporter Dan Feldstein and the Houston Chronicle in their article concerning my property taxes is a perfect example of why both the American public’s esteem for the mainstream media– and the Chronicle’s paid subscription numbers –continue to plummet like a stone. This article was a clear personal attack on me in an attempt to discredit my efforts to reform the property tax system and bring relief to Texas homeowners. It was also an attempt to destroy the trust I have earned with the public over a 16 year career...

Writer Fabricated Boston Globe Story on Seal Hunt Fri Apr 15, 6:54 PM ET By Greg Frost BOSTON (Reuters) - A Boston Globe freelance writer fabricated large chunks of a story published this week, the newspaper said on Friday in the latest incident to embarrass the U.S. media. The Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Co., said it stopped using writer Barbara Stewart because of a story that ran on Wednesday about a seal hunt off Newfoundland -- a hunt, it turns out, that had not taken place. The Halifax, Nova Scotia-datelined article described in graphic detail...