I believe it was Kevin Klose who was trumpeting the news that NPR was
the "most trusted source" of news, beating out former industry leader,
CBS. One reason he gave for this was the presence at NPR of Daniel
Schorr (and other network news retreads).
Did any of you catch the tired old name-dropping cold warrior's
commentary about the Newsweek Koran story? It was pathetic the way he
chided Newsweek, ignoring the overwhelming evidence for Koran
desecration, and of course, torture of detainees in US sponsored or
partnered camps all over the world.
It was a pathetic rear guard action, of course - some actual news
seeped into NPRs coverage of the event a few days later. But just as a
thought exercise, I'm attaching coverage of the story that I got from
other sources the same time that Schorr was spouting his nonsense. You
can certainly trust NPR - to resolutely stay to the middle and right
on issues, to please the administration, to go to official sources
(with proven track records of lying) etc etc. I wish that they would
start really covering the news again - sure, they wouldn't be as
trusted (by people that prefer fantasy) but they would be fulfilling
(what should be) their journalistic mission.
COWARDICE IN JOURNALISM AWARD FOR NEWSWEEK
Goebbels Award for Condi
by Greg Palast
"It's appalling that this story got out there," Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said on her way back from Iraq.
What's NOT appalling to Condi is that the US is holding prisoners at
Guantanamo under conditions termed "torture" by the Red Cross. What's
not appalling to Condi is that prisoners of the Afghan war are held in
violation of international law after that conflict has supposedly
ended. What is NOT appalling to Condi is that prisoner witnesses have
reported several instances of the Koran's desecration.
What is appalling to her is that these things were REPORTED. So to
Condi goes to the Joseph Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda Iron Cross.
But I don't want to leave out our President. His aides report that
George Bush is "angry" about the report -- not the desecration of the
Koran, but the REPORTING of it.
And so long as George is angry and Condi appalled, Newsweek knows what
to do: swiftly grab its corporate ankles and ask the White House for
mercy.
But there was no mercy. Donald Rumsfeld pointed the finger at
Newsweek and said, "People lost their lives. People are dead." Maybe
Rumsfeld was upset that Newsweek was taking away his job. After all,
it's hard to beat Rummy when it comes to making people dead.
And just for the record: Newsweek, unlike Rumsfeld, did not kill
anyone -- nor did its report cause killings. Afghans protested when
they heard the Koran desecration story (as Christians have protested
crucifix desecrations). The Muslim demonstrators were gunned down by
the Afghan military police -- who operate under Rumsfeld's command.
Our Secretary of Defense, in his darkest Big Brother voice, added a
warning for journalists and citizens alike, "People need to be very
careful about what they say."
And Newsweek has now promised to be very, very good, and very, very
careful not to offend Rumsfeld, appall Condi or anger George.
For their good behavior, I'm giving Newsweek and its owner, the
Washington Post, this week's Yellow Streak Award for Craven Cowardice
in Journalism.
As always, the competition is fierce, but Newsweek takes the honors by
backing down on Mike Isakoff's expose of cruelity, racism and just
plain bone-headed incompetence by the US military at the Guantanamo
prison camp.
Isakoff cited a reliable source that among the neat little
"interrogation" techniques used to break down Muslim prisoners was
putting a copy of the Koran into a toilet.
In the old days, Isakoff's discovery would have led to Congressional
investigations of the perpetrators of such official offence. The
Koran-flushers would have been flushed from the military, panels would
have been impaneled and Isakoff would have collected his Pulitzer.
No more. Instead of nailing the wrong-doers, the Bush Administration
went after the guy who REPORTED the crime, Isakoff.
Was there a problem with the story? Certainly. If you want to split
hairs, the inside-government source of the Koran desecration story now
says he can't confirm which military report it appeared in. But he
saw it in one report and a witnesses has confirmed that the Koran was
defiled.
Of course, there's an easy way to get at the truth. RELEASE THE
REPORTS NOW. Hand them over, Mr. Rumsfeld, and let's see for
ourselves what's in them.
But Newsweek and the Post are too polite to ask Rumsfeld to make the
investigative reports public. Rather, the corporate babysitter for
Newsweek, editor Mark Whitaker, said, "Top administration officials
have promised to continue looking into the charges and so will we."
In other words, we'll take the Bush Administration's word that there
is no evidence of Koran-dunking in the draft reports on Guantanamo.
It used to be that the Washington Post permitted journalism in its
newsrooms. No more. But, frankly, that's an old story.
Every time I say investigative reporting is dead or barely breathing
in the USA, some little smartass will challenge me, "What about
Watergate? Huh?" Hey, buddy, the Watergate investigation was 32
years ago -- that means it's been nearly a third of a century since
the Washington Post has printed a big investigative scoop.
The Post today would never run the Watergate story: a hidden source
versus official denial. Let's face it, Bob Woodward, now managing
editor at the Post, has gone from "All the President's Men" to
becoming the President's Man -- "Bush at War." Ugh!
And now the Post company is considering further restrictions on the
use of confidential sources -- no more "Deep Throats."
Despite its supposed new concern for hidden sources, let's note that
Newsweek and the Post have no trouble providing, even in the midst of
this story, cover for secret Administration sources that are FAVORABLE
to Bush. Editor Whitaker's retraction relies on "Administration
officials" whose names he kindly withholds.
In other words, unnamed sources are OK if they defend Bush,
unacceptable if they expose the Administration's mendacity or evil.
A lot of my readers don't like the Koran-story reporter Mike Isakoff
because of his goofy fixation with Monica Lewinsky and Mr. Clinton's
cigar. Have some sympathy for Isakoff: Mike's one darn good
reporter, but as an inmate at the Post/Newsweek facilities, his
ability to send out serious communications to the rest of the world
are limited.
A few years ago, while I was tracking the influence of the power
industry on Washington, Isakoff gave me some hard, hot stuff on Bill
Clinton -- not the cheap intern-under-the-desk gossip -- but an FBI
report for me to publish in The Guardian of Britain.
I asked Isakoff why he didn't put it in Newsweek or in the Post.
He said, when it comes to issues of substance, "No one gives a sh--,"
not the readers, and especially not the editors who assume that their
US target audience is small-minded, ignorant and wants to stay that
way.
That doesn't leave a lot of time, money or courage for real reporting.
And woe to those who practice investigative journalism. As with
CBS's retraction of Dan Rather's report on Bush's draft-dodging,
Newsweek's diving to the mat on Guantanamo acts as a warning to all
journalists who step out of line.
Newsweek has now publicly committed to having its reports vetted by
Rumsfeld's Defense Department before publication. Why not just print
Rumsfeld's press releases and eliminate the middleman, the reporter?
However, not all of us poor scribblers will adhere to this New News
Order. In the meantime, however, for my future security and comfort,
I'm having myself measured for a custom-made orange suit.
********
Greg Palast was awarded the 2005 George Orwell Prize for Courage in
Journalism at the Sundance Film Festival for his investigative reports
produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation. See those reports
for BBC, Harper's, The Nation and others at www.GregPalast.com
****
FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2519
May 19, 2005
ACTION ALERT:
Newsweek, the Quran and the "Green Mushroom"
Following the real rules of modern journalism
Newsweek ran a sensational claim based on an anonymous source who
turned out to be completely wrong. While one can't blame the
subsequent violence entirely on this report, it's fair to say that
credulous reporting like this contributed to a climate in which many
innocent Muslims died.
The inaccurate Newsweek report appeared in the magazine's March 17,
2003 issue, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. It read in part:
"Saddam could decide to take Baghdad with him. One Arab intelligence
officer interviewed by Newsweek spoke of 'the green mushroom' over
Baghdad--the modern-day caliph bidding a grotesque bio-chem farewell
to the land of the living alongside thousands of his subjects as well
as his enemies. Saddam wants to be remembered. He has the means and
the demonic imagination. It is up to U.S. armed forces to stop him
before he can achieve notoriety for all time."
Unlike a more recent Newsweek item (5/9/05), involving accusations
that Guantanamo interrogators flushed a copy of the Quran down a
toilet, Newsweek has yet to retract the bogus report about the "green
mushroom" threat. The magazine's Quran charge has been linked to
rioting in Afghanistan and elsewhere that has left at least 16 dead;
alarmist coverage like Newsweek's about Saddam Hussein's nonexistent
weapons of mass destruction paved the way for an invasion that has
caused, according to the best epidemiological research available
(Lancet, 11/20/04), an estimated 100,000 deaths.
Newsweek was right to retract the Quran story--mainly because the
magazine claimed to have "sources" for the information, when
Newsweek's subsequent descriptions of how it acquired the story
mention only a single source. But it's far from clear that Newsweek's
source was inaccurate in saying that U.S. investigators had uncovered
abuse of a Quran in the course of a recent investigation; similar
allegations have repeatedly been made by former Guantanamo prisoners
(Washington Post, 3/26/03; London Guardian, 12/3/03; Daily Mirror,
3/12/04; Center for Constitutional Rights, 8/4/04; La Gazette du
Maroc, 4/12/05; New York Times, 5/1/05; BBC, 5/2/05; cites compiled by
Antiwar.com, 5/16/05).
Denials by the U.S. military that such incidents have occurred mean
little; when any government holds prisoners in violation of
international law, and denies them access to independent counsel or
human rights groups, assertions by that government about how the
prisoners are being treated can be given little weight. Eric Saar, a
former U.S. Army sergeant who served as a translator at Guantanamo,
has accused the Pentagon of engaging in organized efforts there to
deceive outsiders: Citing a new book by Saar, the Washington Post
reported (4/29/05) that "the U.S. military staged the interrogations
of terrorism suspects for members of Congress and other officials
visiting the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to make it
appear the government was obtaining valuable intelligence."
It's certainly not the case that the Pentagon has been so attentive to
Muslim sensitivities that such treatment of a Quran would be
unthinkable. The Pentagon's deputy undersecretary for intelligence is
Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who is notorious for suggesting that Allah
was "an idol" and saying that the United States' enemies were led by
"Satan," and would "only be defeated if we come against them in the
name of Jesus." It was Boykin who reportedly ordered the coercive
interrogation methods used at Guantanamo to be used at Iraq's Abu
Ghraib as well (London Guardian, 5/20/04).
It has been repeatedly said--including by Newsweek itself, in its
initial apology (5/23/05)--that the magazine's source erred in saying
that the Quran incident was contained in a report for the Pentagon's
Southern Command. In fact, the original report said that the incident
was "expected" to be in the report--an expectation that could have
easily been altered by the fact that the explosive allegation became
public.
Newsweek's retraction of the Quran story, contrasted with the lack of
any correction of its "green mushroom" claim and other similarly
erroneous WMD coverage, is quite illustrative of the actual
rules--quite different from the ostensible rules that are taught in
journalism school--that govern contemporary journalism:
* Anonymous sources are fine, as long as they are promoting rather
than challenging official government policy.
* It's all right for your reporting to be completely wrong, as long as
your errors are in the service of power.
* The human cost of bad reporting need only be counted when people who
matter are doing the counting.
ACTION: Please contact Newsweek editors and ask them to review the
magazine's WMD coverage, and urge them to hold it to the same
standards they applied to the Quran story.
CONTACT:
Newsweek
Phone: 212-445-4000
mailto:letters@newsweek.com
As always, please remember that your comments have more impact if you
maintain a polite tone.
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