From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

Good evening.

It was an item in Newsweek magazine two weeks ago.

This week's news media, especially on cable, buzzed with the story of a runaway story.

It quoted an anonymous Pentagon source who said that an incident of Koran desecration at Guantanamo would appear in an upcoming official report.

Before publication, the item was put before another Pentagon

source for a quick check, who offered no comment on the Koran part. Newsweek ran the item.

Peaceful protests turned to riots in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and people died. The original

source retracted. Soon after, so did Newsweek. We feel terrible about the violence and

the role that Newsweek's reporting has played in it. The story about the story offers some real

insight into the pitfalls of some standard journalistic practice, the risks in relying on a single

anonymous source, the imprecision that can lead a reporter to mistake silence for confirmation,

the competitive reflex that rushes to print a story about something in an upcoming report that may well prove not to be there.

But the complicated story was simplified in the coverage, reduced to just another Sally in the culture war,

White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

This report has had very serious consequences.

People have lost their lives, and the image of the United States abroad has been damaged by

this report.

Plus America's reputation flushed down the toilet.

What's Newsweek doing to fix this mess?

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