Dasu Krishnamoorty
In its May 9 issue, Newsweek reported that a forthcoming report by the U.S. Southern Command in Miami was ?expected? to contain the finding that Guantanamo interrogators had flushed a Koran down a toilet to break detainees. This report by Michael Isikoff and John Barry set off bloody riots in the Muslim world killing at least 17 persons and blackening the face of the Bush administration. Attributing the information to an unnamed source, the magazine tried to defend itself by claiming that the source backed off in the last minute from his account. This is a convincing proof of the power of rumour on which depended the Newsweek story on the desecration of Koran. A reader in the Washington Post aptly recalled ?in 1857 the British were nearly driven out of India when rumour spread among their Hindu and Muslim soldiers that ammunition was coated in unclean grease from cows and pigs.?
The backlash was so vehement that Newsweek had to sheepishly take its stand in the dock. There are occasions when explanations and apologies do not work, however logical and sincere they are. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that it was appalling ?that the story got out there. I do think that it¿s done a lot of harm.? Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed similar sentiments. Critics recalled Don Rather¿s false report about President Bush¿s National Guard Service that the CBS initially refused to take back. Earlier, a CNN network executive Eason Jordan had to resign after a blogger attributed to the executive remarks he had made on an anonymous basis about American troops targeting journalists. White House insisted that Newsweek should spell out how ?they got it wrong and explain to the Muslim world the care the US military takes to respect Muslim beliefs and the Koran.?
Howard Kurtz, highly respected media reporter of the Washington Post that also owns Newsweek, came on the net on May 16 to answer questions browsers raised. He said, ?One reason that Newsweek didn`t apologize earlier is that for a period of 11 days, no one challenged the item. The Pentagon didn`t issue a denial, and it was not picked up by the rest of the American media. Only after the story was translated in the Arab media--and the riots began in Afghanistan--did the Pentagon start criticizing the story and Newsweek came to realize it couldn`t defend the piece.? However, he admitted that ?Taking the lack of a denial for confirmation of a story is very risky business indeed. Newsweek did the right thing by running a draft of the item by a senior Pentagon official, and it`s odd that the Pentagon didn`t raise any red flags. But that does not mean the story is true.?
The Newsweek fiasco led nearly every media critic to stress the imperative of respecting sourcing norms. Rupert Murdoch¿s New York Post could not hide its glee at Newsweek¿s discomfiture. Its columnist Steve Dunleavy wrote: ?Newsweek used a tried-and-true technique to get the nonsense story into print: anonymous sources. In the liberal press, it is usually a device of a person who wants to load a gun and have the media pull the trigger on their political foes, while the sources hide under blankets.? Newsweek dodged and dithered acknowledging its mistake. Its editor Marl Whitaker at first said he was sorry but was not retracting the story. Referring to this stonewalling, the New York Post said that Whitaker and Newsweek were taking lessons in how to manage a bogus story from Dan Rather. The retraction sounded half-hearted.
Whitaker said, ?Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Qur¿an (Koran) abuse at Guantanamo Bay.? In an interview with USA TODAY, Whitaker said, ?Honestly we feel terrible (about the violence), but I don`t think anybody could have anticipated what all this would lead to. Numerous other news organizations have printed allegations of prisoner abuse. For some reason, those did not get picked up by activists and insurgents and radicals in the region trying to stir up trouble. Ours did.? The New York Times said, ?Newsweek`s apology comes as the use of anonymous sources by news organizations around the country is under heightened scrutiny. Reader surveys have said that the use of unnamed officials is one of the biggest reasons their trust in the news media has eroded, and several news organizations, including The New York Times, have been tightening the rules on the use of unnamed officials.?
The BBC ran a story by Paul Reynolds on its website on how the anonymous source that Newsweek relied on was not necessarily in a position to know what, if anything, had really happened. It pointed out how the incident illustrated two things: First is how allegations can suddenly and unpredictably ignite protests. Second is how journalists in the United States and elsewhere now have to re-examine their use of anonymous sources. According to the BBC, the Newsweek story is only the latest in a series of incidents which have led news organizations around the world to take a deep look at what rules they employ when dealing with anonymous sources. A reader expressed disbelief at the total absence of any journalistic common sense. ?They¿ve got a single source. No confirmation. Their source couldn¿t show them the document. What were they thinking,? he asked.
Kurtz too is not happy with reporters granting anonymity to sources. He told a browser, ?Anonymous sources are vastly overused in Washington. This, ironically, is a case where it`s understandable that a U.S. official would not want his name used, talking about a military investigative report that has not yet been released. On the other hand, I have to question whether there is great news value in publishing this allegation since, if true, it would have come out anyway when the report was made public. We all in this competitive business try to get out ahead of a story, but the risk here was so much greater than the potential benefit.?
In its editorial, the New York Post said, ?The least Newsweek can do is admit its mistake - with no qualifications. And then fire those responsible.? A browser from Columbia, Maryland, asked Kurtz: ?What on earth does it take to get fired from a news organization these days? Dan Rather using fake documents on the air, but is allowed to keep his job. Mitch Albom fabricates items in his columns, yet is allowed to keep his job. As far as I can tell, Newsweek has not fired Michael Isikoff yet for his sloppy journalism. Does someone have to commit murder to get fired...oh wait, Newsweek essentially did with their false story...never mind.?
Let us grant for a moment that Newsweek reporters verified the information they got from the anonymous source and found it to be true. As a New York Post columnist John Podhoretz asked, ?Would factual accuracy have justified publishing the item in Newsweek or anywhere else? There is no question that for the journalists in trouble, truth is always the best defence in a courtroom. But the world is not a courtroom. The world is a messy, complicated place. There are consequences even for the unvarnished truth.? When governments in India occasionally ban books or films, it is not always a political act to appease a minority or mollify a majority. It is a question of pre-empting a breakdown of law and order that can lead to the loss of innocent lives and destruction of public property. In fact, when a reporter refuses to reveal a source, it may mean he is withholding the truth.
Press critic Jack Shafer writes in Slate. Com: ?I wonder why Newsweek wasn`t more skeptical about Quran-desecration charges. Muslims so venerate the Quran that they are outraged if anyone touches one without first washing their hands, let alone put it into a dung-hole. One would guess that this sort of desecration would be too outrageous to be common, but a short voyage on the Nexis Wayback Machine proves it to be almost widespread. The earliest example I found was from an Aug. 18, 1983, Associated Press story filed in Islamabad, Pakistan. A Western traveler told the AP that Soviet soldiers and Afghan troops had used mosques as toilets and shredded the Quran for toilet paper. ?My impression is that they were trying to humiliate the Afghans, but it just makes them hate (the Soviets) even more,? the traveler said. The AP noted that it couldn`t confirm the story.?
On sourcing, ?The Washington Post is committed to disclosing to its readers the sources of the information in its stories to the maximum possible extent. We want to make our reporting as transparent to the readers as possible so they may know how and where we got our information. Transparency is honest and fair, two values we cherish. Whenever questions arise about how to convey the transparency of our reporting to the reader, consult with editors. Named sources are vastly to be preferred to unnamed sources. Reporters should press to have sources go on the record. We have learned over the years that persistently pushing sources to identify themselves actually works?not always, of course, but more often than many reporters initially expect. If a particular source refuses to allow us to identify him or her, the reporter should consider seeking the information elsewhere.?
In February, Chidanand Rajghatta of the Times of India pointed out how the entire Indian media and legislators in Uttar Pradesh fell for a 15-year-old boy¿s story claiming to have won a prestigious international examination held by NASA to discover young international scientists. Rajghatta wrote, ?Don¿t just blame the boy. It is the Indian media which owes a mea culpa for falling all over a story without taking even the elementary step of a mailing or phoning NASA or looking up its extensive website.? These things keep on happening in the Indian media specially when scientists make claims, solely because journalists do not have the expertise to verify the claims. Remember Arundhati Roy¿s gaffe about the alleged molestation of Ehsan Jaffri¿s daughter!
All news must be sourced in the interests both of credibility and accountability. When the reporter quotes a source, he ought to tell the readers who gave him the information he had used in his news item in order to achieve trust for his report. Each news item has to reveal whether it was the work of the newspaper¿s bureau or a news agency or a private or public organization because someone has to acknowledge the authorship of the report. First, the report must carry a credit line or a byline indicating the source of the news item. Second, the reporter or news agency must identify persons who provided information used in the report. Someone has to take responsibility for what appears in a newspaper. It is likely that somebody¿s reputation is at stake as a result of false information appearing in the newspaper. Even if it is published, a denial or rejoinder by the aggrieved hardly repairs the damage done by the report. A false report may also start a communal riot. There will be loss of life and property as a result. Mischievous reports add to the burden of security forces.
Email the writer at dasukrishnamoorty@hotmail.com