What Makes A Story A Story
I mean, it's appalling, really, that an article that was unfounded to begin with has caused so much harm, including loss of life. And one would expect as the facts come out of how this story was written, one would expect more than the kind of correction we've seen so far. But I think it's very clear to us nonetheless that the effects around the world have been very bad. Happily -- well, luckily, I guess I would say, that things are a little bit quieter today in the South Asia region and Near East. We haven't seen any additional protests today.
There were instances where we felt there was some incitement going on or local authorities felt there was some incitement going on. I think you've seen Afghan authorities talking about that, where people were using this for other local political or other ends.
How do we deal with it? First, I think we deal with it by the same way we have been dealing with it, being transparent and up front and open about what U.S. policy is, what U.S. soldiers do. We have promised that we will look into these allegations, even if the magazine itself has more or less retracted the assertion. But we promised we would look into them and we will. We are looking into them. General Schmidt has been conducting an investigation of the FBI memos and has found nothing that would substantiate in those memos or otherwise charges of desecration of the Koran.
We have made clear, I think, that there is the utmost respect for religion of the prisoners. In fact, the Army, since early 2003, has had instructions to its personnel about handing of the Koran. The Koran is only to be handled by chaplains and Muslim interpreters. It's, you know, people -- they're supposed to put on gloves before the touch it. They're not supposed to in any way disrespect or desecrate the Koran and there are a very specific set of rules the military has on handling the Koran.
So this kind of report, this allegation that's now proving not to have any real basis, is anathema to us. We've said that. We made it clear that our practices and our policies are completely different. And I'm afraid because this story is out there and you can't get it back, we're just going to have to make -- continue to make clear that our practices and our policies are completely different.
-- Amb. Boucher, today, on the Newsweek Koran Desecration Story
Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Qur'an abuse at Guantanamo Bay.
-- Mark Whitaker, Editor, Newsweek, today, following an earlier partial retraction that provided excuses for why Newsweek ran an unconfirmed report that was really no more than a rumor.
What do the New York Times, the British Broadcasting Corporation, CNN, CBS News and, now, Newsweek have in common?
It’s not really a fair question anymore, is it? The answer has now become so gobsmackingly obvious that even the most die-hard liberals have begun to sit up and take notice. While spending most of its time navel-gazing, screaming out its virtue and wondering if these new right-wing nutjobs in pajamas are ruining their profession, the MSM has done us all a favor by acting in such a reckless manner that its tired anti-American, anti-conservative bias is no longer even a topic fit for debate. It’s become a bit like debating whether or not the Earth is flat, the Pope Catholic (though that seems to be a real problem for some these days) or if In ‘n Out Burgers are the best on the planet: the correct answer is easy to identify and everyone knows it.
“Bush lied, people died!” is the lame slogan, but here we see a once-respected newsweekly actually managing the feat, then actually coming out and admitting it. So, we find the newspaper of record manufacturing stories out of whole cloth for its front pages, a director-general having to resign for presiding over a bundle of sordid lies while ironically accusing HMG of the same, a “news executive” admitting that the criminality of the Saddam Hussein regime was covered up by his news organization so that it could maintain its Baghdad bureau, the historically most-famous network news organization parading around an obviously false document to wound a presidential candidate and, now, a sad group of attention-grabbing writers presenting an unfounded rumor they must have known would deeply harm the United States without any factual basis whatsoever.
In each case, don’t take our word for it if you don’t wish to; it’s all a matter of open, clear and widely-known public knowledge. And, instead of asking itself the hard questions, speaking truth to power—two things the self-righteous press corps prides itself on—the response so far has been the same as before.
The story may be fake, yes, we admit it; however, due to the criminal actions of the United States and its idiot President the atmosphere where such stories could be believed made such obvious falsehoods credible. Therefore, the story goes, the President of the United States and not, say, Newsweek is responsible for the riots and the scores injured and killed. The sickening, self-serving nature of such arguments should be apparent to all.
It’s one thing to be anti-American. It’s quite another to spend 365 days a year spreading anti-American propaganda and then blaming others for its effects. Yes, Abu Ghraib was a horror show, but the amount of attention it received—and other stories like it, like the never backed-up NY Times allegation that American troops were keeping Coke bottles in Humvees to break over Iraqi civilians’ heads as they speed by—is many, many times out of proportion to its overall importance. If you doubt this, ask yourself this simple question: from the time of the first Gulf War to the present the United States military has held literally tens of thousands of Iraqi prisoners, the vast majority of whom are alive and well today in Iraq. If Abu Ghraib was the norm instead of what it was—a criminal conspiracy and shameful behavior by a handful of badly-supervised idiots—there should be tens of thousands of similar stories.
But there aren’t more Abu Ghraib-like stories, just thousands upon thousands of stories that run along of the lines of “I was held, my hands were tied, they made me wear a uniform, they fed me MREs then, later, hot food, we showered, we slept, we waited and then we were released.” Not much fun reporting those types of stories, is it?
Rather than an relentless search for truth, the fact is that what passes for reporting in today’s MSM is really just facts and factoids that bolster the press’ uber-liberal worldview that American is bad and American soldiers are worse. And if the "fact" is a little questionable...well, still, it's a really good fact, isn't it?
This is why even respected news organizations like CBS and Newsweek find themselves institutionally incapable of resisting such a juicy story like U.S. soldiers flushing the Koran down a toilet. It’s just too good, it’s just too right, it’s just too, y’know, perfect to pass up on.
It reminds us of an episode we experienced during our years on the left at U.C. Berkeley. A student, a poor young woman, disappeared and was found dead, having been brutally raped beforehand. It was soon revealed that, the night she disappeared she had had a huge and very public fight with her frat-boy white boyfriend.
The Left mobilized. The Daily Californian went into high-gear. The story was reported in vivid detail and thoughtful commentators wrote columns about how the power-mad, violence soaked White culture, with its emphasis on football and competition, inevitably resulted in killer Republicans like this all-American boyfriend.
Marches were planned, more leaflets printed. Angry feminists demanded that we “take back the night” from the white, mainstream oppressive male culture. Angry professors joined us in solidarity, a few wore armbands that never quite caught on.
Then, a few days later, the Oakland Police arrested two young black men for the crime, one of whom quickly confessed, in brutal, confidence-in-mankind-shaking detail.
The marches were quietly cancelled, the leaflets quickly picked up, the professors skulked away.
You see, it was no longer a story.
There were instances where we felt there was some incitement going on or local authorities felt there was some incitement going on. I think you've seen Afghan authorities talking about that, where people were using this for other local political or other ends.
How do we deal with it? First, I think we deal with it by the same way we have been dealing with it, being transparent and up front and open about what U.S. policy is, what U.S. soldiers do. We have promised that we will look into these allegations, even if the magazine itself has more or less retracted the assertion. But we promised we would look into them and we will. We are looking into them. General Schmidt has been conducting an investigation of the FBI memos and has found nothing that would substantiate in those memos or otherwise charges of desecration of the Koran.
We have made clear, I think, that there is the utmost respect for religion of the prisoners. In fact, the Army, since early 2003, has had instructions to its personnel about handing of the Koran. The Koran is only to be handled by chaplains and Muslim interpreters. It's, you know, people -- they're supposed to put on gloves before the touch it. They're not supposed to in any way disrespect or desecrate the Koran and there are a very specific set of rules the military has on handling the Koran.
So this kind of report, this allegation that's now proving not to have any real basis, is anathema to us. We've said that. We made it clear that our practices and our policies are completely different. And I'm afraid because this story is out there and you can't get it back, we're just going to have to make -- continue to make clear that our practices and our policies are completely different.
-- Amb. Boucher, today, on the Newsweek Koran Desecration Story
Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Qur'an abuse at Guantanamo Bay.
-- Mark Whitaker, Editor, Newsweek, today, following an earlier partial retraction that provided excuses for why Newsweek ran an unconfirmed report that was really no more than a rumor.
What do the New York Times, the British Broadcasting Corporation, CNN, CBS News and, now, Newsweek have in common?
It’s not really a fair question anymore, is it? The answer has now become so gobsmackingly obvious that even the most die-hard liberals have begun to sit up and take notice. While spending most of its time navel-gazing, screaming out its virtue and wondering if these new right-wing nutjobs in pajamas are ruining their profession, the MSM has done us all a favor by acting in such a reckless manner that its tired anti-American, anti-conservative bias is no longer even a topic fit for debate. It’s become a bit like debating whether or not the Earth is flat, the Pope Catholic (though that seems to be a real problem for some these days) or if In ‘n Out Burgers are the best on the planet: the correct answer is easy to identify and everyone knows it.
“Bush lied, people died!” is the lame slogan, but here we see a once-respected newsweekly actually managing the feat, then actually coming out and admitting it. So, we find the newspaper of record manufacturing stories out of whole cloth for its front pages, a director-general having to resign for presiding over a bundle of sordid lies while ironically accusing HMG of the same, a “news executive” admitting that the criminality of the Saddam Hussein regime was covered up by his news organization so that it could maintain its Baghdad bureau, the historically most-famous network news organization parading around an obviously false document to wound a presidential candidate and, now, a sad group of attention-grabbing writers presenting an unfounded rumor they must have known would deeply harm the United States without any factual basis whatsoever.
In each case, don’t take our word for it if you don’t wish to; it’s all a matter of open, clear and widely-known public knowledge. And, instead of asking itself the hard questions, speaking truth to power—two things the self-righteous press corps prides itself on—the response so far has been the same as before.
The story may be fake, yes, we admit it; however, due to the criminal actions of the United States and its idiot President the atmosphere where such stories could be believed made such obvious falsehoods credible. Therefore, the story goes, the President of the United States and not, say, Newsweek is responsible for the riots and the scores injured and killed. The sickening, self-serving nature of such arguments should be apparent to all.
It’s one thing to be anti-American. It’s quite another to spend 365 days a year spreading anti-American propaganda and then blaming others for its effects. Yes, Abu Ghraib was a horror show, but the amount of attention it received—and other stories like it, like the never backed-up NY Times allegation that American troops were keeping Coke bottles in Humvees to break over Iraqi civilians’ heads as they speed by—is many, many times out of proportion to its overall importance. If you doubt this, ask yourself this simple question: from the time of the first Gulf War to the present the United States military has held literally tens of thousands of Iraqi prisoners, the vast majority of whom are alive and well today in Iraq. If Abu Ghraib was the norm instead of what it was—a criminal conspiracy and shameful behavior by a handful of badly-supervised idiots—there should be tens of thousands of similar stories.
But there aren’t more Abu Ghraib-like stories, just thousands upon thousands of stories that run along of the lines of “I was held, my hands were tied, they made me wear a uniform, they fed me MREs then, later, hot food, we showered, we slept, we waited and then we were released.” Not much fun reporting those types of stories, is it?
Rather than an relentless search for truth, the fact is that what passes for reporting in today’s MSM is really just facts and factoids that bolster the press’ uber-liberal worldview that American is bad and American soldiers are worse. And if the "fact" is a little questionable...well, still, it's a really good fact, isn't it?
This is why even respected news organizations like CBS and Newsweek find themselves institutionally incapable of resisting such a juicy story like U.S. soldiers flushing the Koran down a toilet. It’s just too good, it’s just too right, it’s just too, y’know, perfect to pass up on.
It reminds us of an episode we experienced during our years on the left at U.C. Berkeley. A student, a poor young woman, disappeared and was found dead, having been brutally raped beforehand. It was soon revealed that, the night she disappeared she had had a huge and very public fight with her frat-boy white boyfriend.
The Left mobilized. The Daily Californian went into high-gear. The story was reported in vivid detail and thoughtful commentators wrote columns about how the power-mad, violence soaked White culture, with its emphasis on football and competition, inevitably resulted in killer Republicans like this all-American boyfriend.
Marches were planned, more leaflets printed. Angry feminists demanded that we “take back the night” from the white, mainstream oppressive male culture. Angry professors joined us in solidarity, a few wore armbands that never quite caught on.
Then, a few days later, the Oakland Police arrested two young black men for the crime, one of whom quickly confessed, in brutal, confidence-in-mankind-shaking detail.
The marches were quietly cancelled, the leaflets quickly picked up, the professors skulked away.
You see, it was no longer a story.
