Newsweek & the Freedom of the Press

Newseek & the Freedom of the Press

I haven't blogged about the Newsweek scandal until now because I've had a hard time taking a stance on it. Things started to fall into place today when I read David Brooks' op-ed in the NYT. Highly recommended read.

Brooks is revulsed by the various reactions in the blogosphere to the scandal. He points out that most of the right side of the blogosphere reacted by bashing Newsweek over its poor journalism. (Tor Andre blogs that this is the angle most Norwegian bloggers covering the story have taken-- is there a connection?) Yes, it's a very big deal that Newsweek may have used a faulty source. But were people killed as a result? Hardly.

The left side of the blogosphere, according to Brooks, has aimed its fury on the possibility that the article might actually be correct. This has occured to me, too. I mean, is it such a far stretch of the imagination? Is flushing the Quran down the toilet really that much worse than smearing fake menstrual blood on captives' faces? Or making them simulate masterbation? These are all pretty gruesome methods of torturing religious fundamentalists. But stories of torture and abuse are already so well-known in these circles that the Newsweek article shouldn't make that much of a difference to anybody, be it bloggers or demonstrators in Afghanistan.

Yesterday, trying to sort out my ideas on the scandal, I wrote a comment on Jan Haugland's perceptive post on the topic. "It´s frightening to imagine what the reaction would have been had Newsweek´s journalists been able to claim reliable sources. Another scapegoat situation? Say the story had been 100%-withoutta-doubt true. Do you think Newsweek would have stood up against, amongst others, the Pentagon and persisted in it´s story? When several soldiers had already been killed 'as a result' of it? I can´t help but feel that the moral of the story is to avoid reporting dangerous events. And by dangerous, I mean stuff that will piss off those ever-ready rioters."

And there's the gist of it. I find all forms of torture inexcusable, including flushing the Quran down the toilet. But does it justify killing 17 people? Fuck no. Brooks sums it up much more eloquently: "These are the extremists, the real enemy. Let's keep our eye on the ball."

The question I'm left with: Have these extremists successfully managed to quell the freedom of our press?