Guess the nightmare for Newsweek isn’t going to go away as quickly as they would like. Checking in with Matt Drudge this AM brings us to Washington Post Co.’s position that Michael Isikoff’s resignation would not be accepted under any circumstances.

NEWSWEEK’s top executives and editors are standing firm behind reporter Michael Isikoff after the magazine retracted his story that U.S. investigators found evidence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Quran.

“Mike was told he would not be sacrificed, we are standing behind him 100%,” a top magazine source told the DRUDGE REPORT. “We do not, I repeat, do not let this White House, any White House, make our staff decisions for us.”

Major K, an Infantry Officer stationed in the Iraqi theatre, writes:

What is “terribly unfortunate” (nice spin) is that this garbage is actually actually considered journalism. I doubt Mr. Klaidman’s sympathies mean anything to the families of the 15-16 people killed in the rioting in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As for his comments on the “lot of people who think that our war on terror and our war in Iraq is a much wider war against Islam,” I wonder if it has dawned on him that this sort of widespread slander in the major media contributes to that false perception. What would be nice is if these bums actually checked their facts and did some semblance of due diligence before publishing this garbage.

Hugh Hewitt brings up the serious issues, and as always they are asked and answered:

Does Isikoff keep his job? You tell me, who did greater harm, Jayson Blair of Michael Isikoff? The former’s intentional misdeeds hurt circulation, profits, and crucially, the reputation of his co-workers. The latter’s negligence led to loss of life and who knows what else in the theater in which we are pursuing some of the country’s deadliest enemies.

So, what to do with the wife’s office subscription to Newsweek? Keep an eye on them by still looking through it once in a while? Cancel the few issues that are left? It’s her subscription, so I won’t get to make that choice, but I will say this. The last Newsweek that seemed to have any real substance was the special issue that they printed just after the election last fall. Reporters had been embedded with the campaigns of both candidates and the insights into how the two endeavors had been conducted were facinating.

Maybe what we are seeing is that a “weekly” magazine is no longer relevant in this day and age of “instant” journalism via the Internet. One thing for sure, if you can’t manage to check and verify your sources and facts for something that you have a week to prepare for, you’d never make it in the blogs!

For more analysis of the Newsweek fiasco see Radioblogger, Michelle Malkin gives us her take on what Isikoff should do & shows us Liberals unhinged, John at Blogotional asks a couple of good questions of his own, & at the Sheep’s Crib, maybe a look at the core reason for all the screwups by the MSM. Happy reading! (db)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 17th, 2005 at 9:14 am and is filed under Focus On Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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