When the News Is Wrong

May 21, 2005 — -- America, we've got a problem. Actually, two problems. One is the news media's loss of credibility because some news organizations have reported stories that are wrong or fabricated. Their BAD.

That contributes to the other problem: the public's disdain for the news and the people who provide it. Too many Americans believe we are all too liberal and we slant the news. They think we deserve no respect.

Look at how reporters and camera people are portrayed on television and in the movies. It makes me crazy. Typically, we're seen as a gang of pushing, shouting, obnoxious people, waving microphones and note pads, trying desperately to get a quote or a picture. The police, politicians, business leaders and celebrities -- in these fictional dramas -- routinely refer to the press as "vultures." Characters are always trying to hide things from the media. But you know what that means? They are really trying to hide it from you, from the public.

But it doesn't help our credibility at all when, in the space of a few months, two major news organizations have had to admit to the whole world that they screwed up. They reported stories that were wrong. They had to retract them and apologize.

Most recently, Newsweek magazine had to retract a clause in a short story. The magazine said government investigators looking into interrogation abuses at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have confirmed that interrogators, in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Koran down a toilet.

An unnamed government source told Newsweek reporters this happened at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, where the detainees are mostly Muslims and those in charge are Americans. You should know that the Koran is to Muslims what the Bible is to Christians, or the Torah is to Jews. It is considered holy, and the word of God.

The story about alleged American desecration of its holy book was too much for many in the Muslim world. Part of one sentence in a short story in a weekly newsmagazine was used to stir up riots in countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia. Sixteen people died.