With the modern collapse of journalistic standards, a blogger can feel more and more like a member of the legitimate press. At least this is what my fictional agent tells me.
The latest controversy concerns Newsweek's eventual retraction of a report by Michael Isikoff and John Barry that Guantanamo Bay interrogators desecrated the Koran. According to Matt Drudge (and I apologize in advance for any pop-up ad), Mr. Isikoff likely got his info from an unnamed source in Congress. He also quotes Mr. Isikoff's comments in a recent published interview, reprinted here in relevant part:
"Neither Newsweek nor the Pentagon foresaw that a reference to the desecration of the Koran was going to create the kind of response that it did."
What? Until now, I'd only heard good things about Michael Isikoff -- he's the guy who first broke the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, and has been reliable for breaking news ever since -- but this quote is even dumber than filing a report of questionable truth. Of course there'll be an uproarious response in the Middle East. You know how news shows will have footage of activists there who burn President Bush in effigy? Well, this is the same thing, only seemingly authorized by the U.S. government.
In the same spirit of journalistic integrity I've decided to track down the lone, unbiased witness to the event. She tells me that I cannot print her name, but that she will accept being referenced by the initials MM. She says:
"I was just sitting in the U-bend thinking about death, when all of a sudden a group of U.S. soldiers, led by Donald Rumsfeld, entered with a great commotion and kept yelling out to someone in the hall that they would flush a book in the toilet. Then they opened my door! Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me. Oh, it was dreadful!"
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