Media Watchdog Compares Newsweek Controversy to Rathergate -- GOPUSA

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Media Watchdog Compares Newsweek Controversy to Rathergate
By Melanie Hunter
CNSNews.com Deputy Managing Editor
May 17, 2005

(CNSNews.com) -- A media watchdog group blasted Newsweek Monday for refusing to issue a retraction of its report that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushed a Koran down a toilet despite the fact that the claim came from an anonymous source who could not substantiate it.

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell compared Newsweek's journalistic integrity to that of CBS News during the National Guard controversy.

"Newsweek is guilty of pushing a false story they knew was unconfirmed but wanted to believe was true, and this time the result was tragic," said Bozell, who is also founder of the Cybercast News Service.

"The Newsweek story is the same CBS/National Guard 'gotcha' journalism story all over again, only this time with riots and deaths as the deeply regrettable consequences," added Bozell.

"This is the painful legacy of news organizations whose anti-Bush agenda predisposes them to running negative stories they want to believe are true, even if they have no evidence of their veracity," he said.

"Newsweek is making a terrible story even worse by refusing to retract it, and telling the New York Times: 'We are not retracting anything.' This is shades of Dan Rather and CBS continuing to tell the public their National Guard story was true until somebody disproved it."

The magazine has refused to retract the story, but issued an apology, saying they regretted that they "got any part of our story wrong." It also extended its sympathies to the victims of violence that erupted as a result of the story. Fifteen people were killed and over a hundred injured in Afghanistan because of Newsweek's story.