Don Imus interviewed Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter on his program this morning and tore into him on the now-retracted story of Koran-defacing by U. S. interrogators at Guantanamo. If you haven’t heard about this story, go over to The Moderate Voice. Joe Gandelman has a thorough recap along with commentary and a round-up of blogospheric commentary.
Alter emphasized how upset the people at Newsweek were and that Newsweek was committed to an “open process”. He also confirmed that Newsweek had only a single source for the allegation. A puzzling aspect to Alter’s account of what had actually gone on at Newsweek was his comment that “the Pentagon hadn’t stopped the story”.
I’m no expert on journalistic methods or journalistic ethics. Is an open process the standard for how journalists should proceed?
UPDATE: Imus grilled Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman next. Fineman hewed to the same general line that Alter had: how upset everyone was, that he trusted the editors at Newsweek, etc. He took special care to distance himself even farther from the story than had Alter.
One of Imus’s henchmen asked Mr. Fineman a question that Fineman quite clearly found disturbing: even if the story had been true, doesn’t the Press have some responsibility to avoid placing U. S. soldiers in the field in harm’s way by revealing a story? Fineman did not give the question a straight answer and, as I said, was clearly troubled by the question.
It’s a question that journalists should be able to give a straight answer to.
UPDATE: Partial transcript here.
I think a good case can be made either way on that question (I believe if they’re sure, they should print it) but, as you say, whatever the answer, it ought to be clear in the minds of these guys. Either they haven’t ever thought about it or they’re unwilling to say. An amazingly botched and ball-less performance by Newsweek.
There might be some particular set of circumstances where a story should come out right now even though troops in the field are put in a more dangerous situation. Mostly, the story could wait days, weeks, or months until the immediate danger was very much less.
By the logic of let it out now, Newsweek should be revealing police raids on drug labs prior to them being done. Or how about letting companies know prior to the raid to seize documents on investment schemes and insider trading? Once you open that gate, it’s pretty tough to shut it.
Now let’s talk about single sourcing something giving aid and comfort to the enemy, right out of the terrorist manual on disinformation. The MSM doesn’t need any more trust-and-truthfulness hits, yet here it is again.
They’ve thought about it. It’s just that the journalistic culture today adheres to a weird adversarial neutrality toward the United States, relative to its enemies, that WWII era reporters would have found bizarre and contemptible.
And they fear that if they take their stance openly the public will feel the same.
One reason for the difference in the media reporting information useful the enemy between WWII and the present may be that in WWII journalists were emotionally much closer to the troops fighting, their sons, brothers, school friends, etc. were serving in combat zones or soon would be. Now virtually no journalists nor any or their social circle have any personal connection with soldiers, so the consequences for the troops of what they report never really enters their thoughts.
This effect is only compounded by a journalistic culture that regards the military and the government in general as their adversary if not enemy; while journalists view themselves as some sort of Olympian gods looking down on the affairs of mere mortals. It is this sort of attitude that led to the notorious 1980s PBS interviews where leading journalists said they would stand by silently if they had advance knowledge of an enemy ambush of American troops.