Recently, Newsweek erroneously reported that military officials guarding al Qaeda detainees at the U.S. facility in Guantanamo Bay flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet. The report was later picked up by Al Jazeera and was ultimately repeated by radical Muslim leaders in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The reports sparked violent riots that led to at least 17 dead and hundreds injured before Newsweek finally retracted the story. Many have been covering this story thoroughly over the last few days, so rather than rehashing everything that’s been said elsewhere, here are a few observations:

• In 1998, Michael Isikoff, the reporter behind the retracted Newsweek report, was also the guy who almost broke the Monica Lewinsky story. I say almost because as we all know by now, Matt Drudge broke the story. Drudge was given an opening because Newsweek’s editors pulled the plug at the last minute. Was it a case of Clinton favoratism? Or was it a need for more thorough fact-checking? If it was the latter, why didn’t Newsweek apply a similar standard in this case?
• Newsweek’s original report referred to “sources” corroborating the Koran-flushing story. The “s” at the end of “sources” indicates more than one source. But, as we now know, Newsweek had only one source for the story. So why lie to readers that way? Even if Newsweek couldn’t be certain of the original report, the one thing they could be absolutely sure of was how many sources reported the story to them. Was Newsweek trying to make us think the story was more legitimate than it turned out to be? Or is this standard journalistic practice? Inquiring minds want to know!
• Has anyone actually tried flushing a book down the toilet? It isn’t easy! You need either a really big toilet or a really small book. Even my copy of the diminutive The Wit and Wisdom of Al Franken jammed up my commode.
• Since the beginning of our War on Terror, the media has reported unsubstantiated allegations from al Qaeda detainees. The mere reporting of these charges serves to legitimize them, whether or not they were backed up by any evidence. In fact, al Qaeda training manual advises captured operatives to “complain of mistreatment while in prison.” Making unfounded charges is part of the playbook of our enemy! So, it would be nice if the media, which prides itself on skepticism, would treat the statements of al Qaeda prisoners at least as skeptically as they treat those of our leaders.
• After Enron and the other financial scandals of the last decade, newspapers and pundits from sea to shining sea declared the importance of regulating businesses. Submitting corporations to outside accountability, we were told, was the only way corruption and fraud could be stopped. Well, we now have 17 dead and hundreds injured in riots around the Middle East. Why? Because Newsweek’s screw-up left our enemy with a propaganda victory. Yet, for some reason, I don’t hear any journalists calling for their own industry to be regulated. (I’m emphatically not arguing for it, by the way; I’m just noticing a hypocrisy.) People lost money because of fraud at Enron, and executives ended up in jail. People died and a foreign policy nightmare was created because of bad reporting at Newsweek, and the magazine issues a weak apology. The real-world consequences of Newsweek’s negligence might be far worse than Enron’s, but Newsweek itself doesn’t seem to be facing any consequences other than a tarnished name.
• Newsweek didn’t kill anybody, radical Muslim lunatics did. Still, it would be quite helpful if our media remembered that these same lunatics would kill every non-Muslim to bring about their global Caliphate if given the chance. Reporters might not feel a duty to act in the best interests of their country, but you’d think that self-preservation would at least require that they not act as extensions of our enemy’s propaganda apparatus.
• For all the times that I’ve seen liberal commentators compare Christian conservatives to Muslim extremists, I do not recall anyone getting killed when Andres Serrano got government funding to put a crufix in a beaker of urine and call it art. I don’t recall any riots after Sinead O’Connor tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on live TV. Yet, our media repeatedly transmits the message that “our fundamentalists” are no different from “their fundamentalists.” We can’t defeat an enemy if we perceive ourselves as just as bad—if not worse—than they are. But that’s exactly the message the moral relativists in our media broadcast time and time again.

Other coverage of the Newsweek fiasco:

• The London Times: “Newsweek sparks global riots with one paragraph on Koran”
• The London Times: “Incendiary Koran claim may be false, editor admits”
• CNN: “Newsweek backs off Quran desecration story”
• Reuters: “Newsweek says Koran desecration report is wrong”
• Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post: “Newsweek Apologizes”
• Newsweek: “How a Fire Broke Out”
• Newsweek: “Did a report in NEWSWEEK set off a wave of deadly anti-American riots in Afghanistan?”