Newsweek Retracts Koran-Desecration Story
By Jane Roh, May 17, 2005 Fox News
https://www.foxnews.com/story/newsweek-retracts-koran-desecration-story
Newsweek on Monday retracted a story alleging interrogators at Guantanamo flushed the Koran down a toilet in front of detainees.
“Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay,” editor Mark Whitaker said in statement released Monday evening.
Earlier, Whitaker acknowledged the story was problematic in an apology to Newsweek’s readers, but said there was no reason to retract the story.
“We’re not retracting anything. We don’t know what the ultimate facts are,” he told The New York Times.
Newsweek did not say what caused the turnabout.
In the apology, Whitaker said that its lone source for a story accusing U.S. interrogators of flushing the Koran down the toilet to rattle a detainee later said he could not recall where information about the alleged incident came from.
“We believed our story was newsworthy because a U.S. official said government investigators turned up this evidence,” Whitaker wrote. “But we regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst.”
Protesters took to the streets in several Afghan cities last week after Newsweek published its report. American flags were burned, relief organizations were attacked and at least 16 people were killed and scores injured in clashes with police.
Angry Bush administration officials were out in force following Newsweek’s admission.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman called the report demonstrably false, and that investigators at the FBI and the Southern Command have not found any evidence to support it. SouthCom is based in Miami and oversees operations at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“You can’t go back and undo or retract the damage that has been caused not only to this nation, but to those who have been attacked, injured or killed as a result of these false allegations,” he said.
The White House said, “It’s puzzling. While Newsweek now acknowledges that they got the facts wrong, they refuse to retract the story,” press secretary Scott McClellan said. “I think there’s a certain journalistic standard that should be met. In this instance it was not.
“This was a report based on a single anonymous source that could not substantiate the allegation that was made,” McClellan added. “The report has had serious consequences. People have lost their lives. The image of the United States abroad has been damaged. I just find it puzzling.”
Whitaker said that writer Michael Isikoff had shown the story to two Defense Department officials but that neither commented on the alleged Koran incident. Whitman implied on Monday that no Defense officials were contacted prior to publication.
Whitaker, however, did not say that the allegations in the story were wrong, but that the Newsweek reporters’ source could not pinpoint where the source obtained his or her information. He also implied that the story had no causal effect on the recent riots in Afghanistan, in which 16 people have died and dozens have been injured.
“The riots started and spread across the country, fanned by extremists and unhappiness over the economy,” Whitaker wrote.
On Friday, Whitman said the Pentagon did not receive the report, and that even if Newsweek’s source was based on that statement, it would be “substandard” journalism to report on a detainee’s uncorroborated statement.
Eric Burns, a media analyst and host of “FOX News Watch,” agreed that Isikoff should have tried to back up their source.
Journalists are supposed to “get multiple sources for printing something incendiary,” and if the source’s information did come from a military report, “they should have gotten a copy of that report,” Burns said.
Newsweek writer regrets Quran reporting
May 24, 2005 The Associated Press
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7963061
One of the two Newsweek journalists behind the retracted article alleging that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Quran at Guantanamo Bay said he dropped the ball by not properly corroborating his anonymous source.
Michael Isikoff, addressing the furor in an interview broadcast Monday night on “The Charlie Rose Show,” said he regretted the possibility that his article, which has been blamed for violent protests in Muslim countries, may have spurred riots.
“It was terrible what happened,” he told Rose. “Even if it was just a little bit that we contributed to the violence that went on over there, that was awful, terrible.”
He said that the reporters had provided the article in full to a senior Defense Department official. The official asked for a change of wording on a separate issue, but said nothing about the details concerning the Quran.
He and co-author, John Barry, had provided his article for review as a precaution, he said, but had erred by not getting positive corroboration on each point in the article by the Pentagon official.
Isikoff said that he thought the error had harmed the magazine. “I think it has clearly done some temporary damage,” he said. “It’s thrown us off our game for a little bit,” he said. “I think this will end up being a blip.”
Newsweek, which is owned by The Washington Post Co., retracted the May 9 report after officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department criticized its publication and its use of an anonymous source.