Newsweek lied, people died

After a drumbeat of criticism from the Bush administration and others, Newsweek magazine yesterday went beyond an apology it issued Sunday and retracted an article published May 1 that stated that American interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had tried to rattle Muslim detainees by flushing a Koran down a toilet.

The original article was blamed for inciting widespread protests and riots in the Muslim world, where desecration of the Koran is viewed as an incendiary act, and where at least 17 people were killed in the ensuing violence. *

Yet another mainstream media fuck-up, and this time it cost people their lives. The 'sphere has been completely ablaze with this story.

"There is a lot of anger, both here and abroad," Mr. Gergen added. "The Muslim world is going to continue to believe that this actually happened and that Newsweek is only issuing a retraction because of the reaction."
He said the magazine was smart to issue the retraction, but that it would not quell the outrage. "If anything, it is mushrooming and becoming uglier by the hour," he said.

Roll the ugliness: See here, here, and here ( here, too) for round-ups of the story and the reactions from both hippies and normal people.
This is really getting ridiculous. It seems like every month there's another story about how some media outlet gets its facts wrong. Interestingly, all the stories seem to be stories that would hurt President Bush, if they were true. No wonder, then, that there's a movement underfoot to have more conservatives on staff at media outlets. Predictably, the hippies are shouting "censorship." Blogga please!
Thankfully, Team America: World Police comes out on DVD today, which should go a long way toward improving America's status in the rest of the world. Er, wait...