It’s really very simple: If the Newsweek story is wrong – and even Newsweek now admits it’s wrong – then nothing in the Newsweek story is right. Not the part about “sources.” Not the part about an upcoming report on an internal military investigation. And certainly not the part about U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushing the Koran down the toilet.
The story caused riots in the Muslim world. People were killed. All because a Newsweek reporter didn’t get his facts right.
And if the reporter didn’t get his facts right in this story about Guantanamo Bay, how can you be sure he got his facts right in any other story about Guantanamo Bay? You can’t be sure – that’s the answer. You can’t be sure about anything he’s ever written about U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, or about the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, or about anything going on at Guantanamo Bay at all.
It’s like the White House press secretary said the other day: “There is a certain journalistic standard that should be met, and in this case it was not met.” When the White House has to lecture journalists about journalistic standards, you know how bad things are.
But it’s even worse than that.
After all, if you can’t believe anything this reporter’s ever written about Guantanamo Bay, how can you possibly believe anything he’s ever written about Abu Ghraib? He’s written about Abu Ghraib, too, you know – he’s even supposedly won an award for it – and at first glance, it might have looked as if our soldiers over there mistreated people. But now that we know who wrote some of those stories, you have to wonder if maybe it wasn’t nearly as awful as it looked. It wouldn’t be beyond certain people to make things up, or even to come up with “incriminating” photographs, just to make certain other people look bad. So it only makes sense to be skeptical.
For that matter, if this reporter can get it so wrong about Guantanamo Bay, and get it so wrong about Abu Ghraib, you have to wonder about everything this guy’s ever written about anything! There’s only one conclusion you can come to: He can’t be trusted. (His stories about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky were different – those were totally accurate.)
But it’s not just this one reporter – what about the magazine he works for? They’re the ones who hired him. They’re the ones who let him go out “reporting,” and then put his wrong facts into print where the whole world could see them and get outraged and kill people. So why should you trust anything you read in Newsweek?
It’s so obvious they have an agenda. Some people try to build up, and some just want to tear down. And it’s not only Newsweek. There are plenty of other news magazines that want to tear down, too – you can’t trust them any more than you can trust Newsweek. Did you see even one of them coming out and saying that Newsweek was wrong about the Koran and the toilet? That’s because they’re all perfectly glad to tear down, and to put the Pentagon in a bad light, even while our brave young men and women are putting their lives on the line.
You can’t believe anything you read in news magazines – that’s the long and the short of it.
And what about television? Do you think Dan Rather’s the only one? Don’t be naive – they all try to get away with it. Rather just got caught.
And newspapers – they’re the worst of all! Always trying to twist things and make them come out negative.
There’s only one answer: Don’t trust them. Don’t trust any of them. Don’t believe anything they’ve ever written or broadcast in the past, and don’t believe anything they might ever write or broadcast in the future. They’re just trying to stir up trouble.
If you need something to believe, believe the government. Believe everything the government tells you, and only what the government tells you.
It’s so much easier that way.
Rick Horowitz is a nationally syndicated columnist. Contact him by writing to rickhoro@execpc.com.
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