Freedom To Lie

Score another one for the MSM. Panicked that press privilege might spread to bloggers, hung-up on journalistic ethics that vanish where the punching-bag is Bush, Newsweek's now after bigger prey: Provoking global riots (and nine deaths) via a story it now admits was poorly sourced and probably false:

Newsweek magazine on Sunday said it erred in a May 9 report that said U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to the victims of deadly Muslim protests sparked by the article.

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst," Editor Mark Whitaker wrote in the magazine's latest issue, due to appear on U.S. newsstands on Monday.

The report sparked angry and violent protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan to Indonesia to Gaza. In the past week it was condemned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and by the Arab League. On Sunday, Afghan Muslim clerics threatened to call for a holy war against the United States.

As in Ra^therGate, bad news for Bush never requires confirmation.

Daniel at Bloggledygook sums up the problem with Western press:

It seems to me that at times this war is being waged for the benefit of those who do not deserve it. Two whining beneficiaries of this war are, first the MSM, whose constitutional rights would be thrown out under an Islamist regime, and second, the Muslim faithful around the world who look on a possible desecration as something worthy of riot and murder.

I know a lot of Christians and Jews who would be very upset if someone abused a Bible. I know of none that would murder because of it.

America remains best served by a free and competitive press. I just wish they'd acknowledge and print Daniel's comment.