Yes, Newsweek and Michael Isikoff screwed up.
Yes, because of their screw-up, people died.
Yes, the US position in the Middle East and Central Asia was damaged - not fatally, but perhaps permanently.
No - nothing will change in the way the MSM conducts business.
Let me repeat that, just to make myself clear: Nothing will change. No improvements will be made. For the MSM, the lesson learned is not "let's stick to the facts next time." The lesson is, "let's be more careful in how we present what we think the story is/should be."
If there's any kind of tipping point here, it will be in how the public perceives the news. There will be no change, none at all, in how the MSM perceives the news - nor in how it will choose to shape the story.
9/11 changed everything, we keep saying. For the MSM, 9/11 changed maybe a couple things – and even then only for a week or a month or two. The blogosphere, for all our recent power or notoriety or whatever, is still seen by the MSM as something to co-opt/sneer at/ignore – often all in the same story. Those things said, do you think one bad story and 15 dead bodies will make the MSM change its ways, when 9/11 didn’t?
Change will come. Someday, someday, eventually – maybe. But not today. Not over this.
So get over it.
Even though I won’t.
UPDATE: For Jim Geraghty, this time it's personal.
Just found out about you from Samizdata. Nice blog. Should anybody really heed MSM anymore? I barely check their web pages anymore, and never listen/watch their broadcasts.
You're right. It's unlikely there will an epiphany in the media during which the error of their ways will be revealed to them. Any change will be forced on them and here's something that might start the ball rolling, I just read that families of riot victims are being approached by lawyers with an eye to law suits.
The Newsweek article was obviously planned to weaken Bush and distract him from the senate confirmation battles. The silver lining in this tragedy might be that Democratic senators will be too chagrined to continue their obstructionist tactics.
We can hope
i think it says a lot about the MSM that they lost one of their own to the islamic monsters in afghanistan when daniel perle was decapitated. they still fail to grasp that islam is an intolerant religion and insist on pointing the finger at the west. too bad they haven't learned their lesson. i think the only way for them to learn is to stop watching/subscribing to MSM outlets that don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Hey,
Couple things to chew on:
1) MSM, Newsweek et al. are a bunch of lefty douche-bags.
2) Obviously, this was political.
3) Rioting Muslim Afghans are also douche-bags.
4) Rioting and killing is not a cogent response to some politicized report.
Newsweek, while editorially irresponsible and in all likelihood, intentionally produced this inflammatory piece...is not responsible for a bunch of fuckfaces rioting.
5) Hope your bro is safe and well. God bless America and the men and women who keep it safe!
Change? no.
Gave some westerners pause w/their rioting?
Just maybe.
jesus, you really are just an idiot with a microphone.
u.s interrogators would anally rape these guys with broomsticks, but nooooo, no, nooooo, they'd never desecrate the koran?
what fucking kool-aid whackos you people must be. please go to iraq and serve the cause immediately, please.
