Newsweek's Other Mistakes

Reporting on sensitive issues using thin sources and research work is irresponsible. In a dangerous world, this haphazard reporting can costs lives.

In an article from Tom Paine we see how the irresponsible reporting of Newsweek (and many other news outlets we might add) has produced global ire and the loss of approximately 100,000 lives.

"The inaccurate Newsweek report appeared in the magazine's March 17, 2003 issue, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. It read in part:

Saddam could decide to take Baghdad with him. One Arab intelligence officer interviewed by Newsweek spoke of 'the green mushroom' over Baghdad;the modern-day caliph bidding a grotesque bio-chem farewell to the land of the living alongside thousands of his subjects as well as his enemies. Saddam wants to be remembered. He has the means and the demonic imagination. It is up to U.S. armed forces to stop him before he can achieve notoriety for all time.

Unlike a more recent Newsweek item, involving accusations that Guantanamo interrogators flushed a copy of the Quran down a toilet, Newsweek has yet to retract the bogus report about the "green mushroom" threat. The magazine's Quran charge has been linked to rioting in Afghanistan and elsewhere that has left at least 16 dead; alarmist coverage like Newsweek's about Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction paved the way for an invasion that has caused, according to the respected British medical journal The Lancet , an estimated 100,000 excess deaths."

Read more HERE