Adam's Apple
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- Apr 25, 2004
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Can they ever!
Unnamed Sources Can Burn the Media
By Ken Bode for The Indianapolis Star
May 20, 2005
There is an old rule of journalism: If your scoop remains a scoop for more than 24 hours, you'd better go back and check your sources.
Newsweek magazine owned the story of American interrogators at Guantanamo tormenting Muslim detainees by flushing their holy book, the Quran, down a toilet. This was just a small note at the beginning of the magazine, contributed by investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, who achieved fame by uncovering President Clinton's liaison with Monica Lewinsky.
Isikoff's source was a longtime government official who was "knowledgeable about the matter." No other news organization could verify this story. Apparently no other journalist touched it until, in this wireless world, the charge made its way to Pakistan and then to Afghanistan, where it set off a wave of angry anti-American riots resulting in 17 deaths.
Fifteen days later, Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker expressed regret for the story, admitting that the unidentified confidential source was no longer sure the story was true. This adds fuel to a simmering controversy in major news organizations all over the country about using unnamed officials and relying on single sources.
In my 10 years as national political correspondent for NBC News, there were strict rules. If a source refused to go "on the record," the network demanded to know who he was, how he was in a position to have the information he offered and whether we would be advancing his political agenda by reporting the story. Then, without identifying the original source, we could use his information to seek a confirmation.
Those standards may have slipped elsewhere. They certainly have slipped at Newsweek. There, the reporters never got an actual confirmation. Nor, apparently, did anyone address the question: How do you flush a book down a toilet?
for full story:
www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050520/OPINION/505200396/1002
Unnamed Sources Can Burn the Media
By Ken Bode for The Indianapolis Star
May 20, 2005
There is an old rule of journalism: If your scoop remains a scoop for more than 24 hours, you'd better go back and check your sources.
Newsweek magazine owned the story of American interrogators at Guantanamo tormenting Muslim detainees by flushing their holy book, the Quran, down a toilet. This was just a small note at the beginning of the magazine, contributed by investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, who achieved fame by uncovering President Clinton's liaison with Monica Lewinsky.
Isikoff's source was a longtime government official who was "knowledgeable about the matter." No other news organization could verify this story. Apparently no other journalist touched it until, in this wireless world, the charge made its way to Pakistan and then to Afghanistan, where it set off a wave of angry anti-American riots resulting in 17 deaths.
Fifteen days later, Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker expressed regret for the story, admitting that the unidentified confidential source was no longer sure the story was true. This adds fuel to a simmering controversy in major news organizations all over the country about using unnamed officials and relying on single sources.
In my 10 years as national political correspondent for NBC News, there were strict rules. If a source refused to go "on the record," the network demanded to know who he was, how he was in a position to have the information he offered and whether we would be advancing his political agenda by reporting the story. Then, without identifying the original source, we could use his information to seek a confirmation.
Those standards may have slipped elsewhere. They certainly have slipped at Newsweek. There, the reporters never got an actual confirmation. Nor, apparently, did anyone address the question: How do you flush a book down a toilet?
for full story:
www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050520/OPINION/505200396/1002
