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| Newsweek
Article Sparks Anti- American Violence |
Posted:
05.18.05 | |
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The retraction Monday of a Newsweek article that caused anti-U.S. protests
in Afghanistan has led to questions of when reporters should use anonymous sources. Printer-friendly
versions: PDF | |
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Officials at the White House are criticizing a Newsweek magazine article they
say damaged the image of the United States in the Arab world and led to deadly
riots in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries.  The
article, which was printed in the May 9 issue of the widely circulated news magazine,
claimed that American interrogators in a jail at the Guantanamo Bay military facility
in Cuba antagonized accused Muslim terrorists by flushing a Quran, the Muslim
holy book, down a toilet.
Following the publication of the article, 15 anti-American
demonstrators in Afghanistan died when police fired on the crowd. Another 100
people were injured in similar protests in other parts of the Muslim world including
Indonesia and Pakistan. In both Pakistan and Indonesia, and in some other
Muslim countries, defaming or insulting the Quran is considered a crime and can
be punished by death, according to the BBC. | |
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| Newsweek's
story | |
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A week after the story
was published, under heavy pressure from the White House, Newsweek formally retracted
its story. "We certainly accept some responsibility and we feel awful
about it," Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker told the NewsHour. "In
the magazine this week and in the editor's note … I say how  upset
we are and I express sympathy for the Afghans who have died and been injured and
for the U.S. soldiers who have been caught in the middle of all this." In
the magazine's defense, Whitaker said his staff had shown the article to government
officials before publishing it in order to back up the information. "[W]e
approached two separate Defense Department officials for comment. One declined
to give us a response; the other challenged another aspect of the story but did
not dispute the Quran charge," Whitaker wrote in the magazine. | |
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| The
use of anonymous sources | |
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The two reporters who wrote the story -- two of the magazine's top journalists
-- cited only an unnamed U.S. official as the provider of the Quran information.
The controversy has raised questions about the use of anonymous sources in journalism.
Common journalistic practice calls for at least two sources to corroborate
details of a news story. Reporters are only supposed to use anonymous sources
in the most extreme cases such as if the life of the source is in danger or if
national security depends on the source's identity remaining secret, according
to Tom Goldstein, professor of journalism and mass communications at the University
of California, Berkeley.  "[Y]ou
try to get people on the record. But there are certain situations … where
a person who has access to information cannot be identified by name," said
Goldstein.
"Journalism totally without anonymous sources … would
be a very tepid, lame journalism," he added. Some critics blame the
competition to beat other news organizations to the story for the misuse and overuse
of anonymous sources. "What was the imperative to tell the story even
if we weren't sure of it as journalists? It was kind of a case of gotcha -- cynicism
and to say we got somebody in the government or with a case of showing off, it
would be addiction to exclusives," said Jeff Jarvis, author of the Web log,
buzzmachine.com. | |
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| The
U.S. image abroad | |
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White House officials say the Newsweek story has hurt the U.S. image abroad.
The story follows a slew of similar stories that  have
led to anti-U.S. sentiment particularly in Muslim countries. Among them,
a CBS 60 Minutes report in early 2004 that showed images of U.S. soldiers abusing
inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison facility in Iraq; and in November, an NBC video
that showed images of a U.S. Marine executing an unarmed insurgent in an Iraq
mosque. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has defended American practices
overseas. "The United States is a country that believes deeply in religious
freedom and the equality of all to practice religion as they see it," she
said. "And we would certainly never condone anything that would be
a desecration of the holy book of one of the world's great religions." |
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Compiled by Kristina Nwazota for NewsHour Extra |
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