- “People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?“
Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita, on the anonymous source behind Newsweek’s Periscope item. Said “son of a bitch” has since recanted his story, leaving Newsweek with some serious ass-exposure, considering 15 people died (and scores were injured) in riots throughout the Middle East in the wake of the story.
Bully to Newsweek for taking a third hand report from an anonymous source because it confirmed their pre-existing suspicions, and running it without proper fact checking. Bonus points for employing the CBS strategy of running a report (right before release) in front of a government official and treating their lack of outraged denial as proof that the story was true.
How a Fire Broke Out – [Newsweek]
Newsweek Apologizes for Quran Story Errors – [AP]
Newsweek’s nightmares – [Powerline]
This is outrageous. Words can’t express my own personal anger over this story. The so-called experts on the Middle East at Newsweek had to know that running a story about US soldiers desecrating a Koran would inflame anger in the Islamic world. And assist the Islamofascists in their recruitment efforts. This is a perfect example of the MSM showing their true colors — Anti-American scumbags. It’s also evidence that somehow the MSM has lowered the bar when it comes to printing and broadcasting unsubstantiated statements.
We are at war. These ‘anonymous’ sources and the reporters are giving aid and comfort to our enemies and so are traitors. So who is going to punish these people?
Oh, you didn’t hear the funny bit. Where does the anonymous souce now say that he originally heard the story? Why, he read it in Newsweek!
My ‘favorite’ part of their apology is where they explain that they showed teh article to a pentagon source to ask if it was true, and he commented on the one thing he knew about (it was not true). Since he did not comment on the things he didn’t know about, Newsweek decided that meant they must be true. If that’s hard to follow, thank NEWSWEEK.
Actually one of the Pentagon folks explicitly stated that he had no knowledge of the Report that was mentioned in the article. In that case I could be a second “source” for the article, I don’t know what is in the Pentagon Report either.