Newsweek comeuppance by the blogosphere

IÂ’m trying to resist joining the blogswarm thatÂ’s pounding away at Newsweek for screwing up on its Koran desecration story. There but for the grace of God go I, and all that.

Still, you have to wonder what happened to the magazineÂ’s checks and balances. That question is quite rightly being picked apart by the blogosphere today.

One blogger who isnÂ’t joining the scrum is Michigan University professor Juan Cole who still maintains that NewsweekÂ’s original story has it right.

In the explanatory note published on its Web site Sunday, Newsweek stated:

“"On Saturday, (Michael) Isikoff spoke to his original source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Qur'an, including a toilet incident. But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the SouthCom report."

Cole understands that paragraph to suggest thereÂ’s probable cause to believe the claim that U.S. soldiers were guilty of desecration.

“Isikoff's source, in other words, stands by his report of the incident, but is merely tracing it to other paperwork. What difference does that make? Although Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita angrily denounced the source as no longer credible, in the real world you can't just get rid of a witness because the person made a minor mistake with regard to a text citation. It is like saying that we can't be sure someone has really read the Gospels because he said he read about Caiaphas in the Gospel of Mark rather than in the Gospel of John.”

Only problem is that you fail the journalistic standard of proof. This “minor mistake” isn’t so minor when it’s the main source for the explosive charges contained in the original story. You need hard evidence before going to print. Otherwise, it’s, at best, fodder for blogosphere blather.