Newsweek and the Guantanamo Koran Abuse Story

On May 9, 2005, Michael Isikoff and John Barry, two seasoned reporters for Newsweek, published a story about the interrogations and imprisonment of suspected terrorists in the aftermath of the Al Qaeda attacks on September 11, 2001 that left Americans in shock and mourning for the many lives that were lost. The suspected terrorists were detained in what became a controversial military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Isikoff and Barry described the culturally insensitive interrogation methods that were conducted at Guantanamo Bay by the American military. They described the soldiers desecrating the Koran, the Moslem holy book, which they placed on toilets and even one time flushed down the toilet. The information for this story was provided by a confidential informant, who in the past had been a very reliable source; however, this fact alone does not guarantee the story’s truth.

As a result of the story, Newsweek faced a lot of criticism. The American Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a statement on May 16, 2005, saying, “We can’t find anything to substantiate the allegations that appeared in Newsweek” (Jacquette, 2007, p. 15). On May 23, 2005, two weeks after publishing the Koran abuse story, Newsweek retracted the story. Mark Whitaker, the editor, commented, “Based on what we know ow, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay” (Jacquette, 2007, p. 15). Though the story was retracted voluntarily, it came after a great deal of criticism from the American military and other governmental officials demanding that the story be withdrawn.

Investigators had reviewed 25,000 documents from the prison and only found one incident involving a copy of the K...

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...cy of the story. I would make sure that that I did not assume that my reporters did not take any short-cuts simply because they were experienced. As the editor, it would be my job to make sure that the story was done right before allowing it to be released to the public.

If the Koran abuse story had been true, I believe that it should be published. There may be bad reactions from the Muslim world, but as Jacquette wrote, “Commitment to truth and accuracy in news reporting is recognized as a fundamental obligation of journalistic ethics” (2007, p. 12). Publishing the story could cause riots, accusations, ruined reputation and lots of anger; but a journalist has a moral and professional obligation to report the abuses taking place in our society as well. They must inform the public because in a sense, journalists are a watchdog over the well-being of society.