Nevermind

It's now being reported that the Newsweek report of Koran flushing, which report has sparked riots in Afghanistan and Pakistan resulting in 15 deaths, may be mistaken:

Newsweek Washington Bureau Chief Daniel Klaidman said the magazine believes it erred in reporting the allegation that a prison guard tried to flush the Koran down a toilet and that military investigators had confirmed the accusation.

Oops.

A couple of thoughts.

First I note that the mistake newsweek cops to is not that the allegations were false, but that they hadn't been confirmed by the military. While damning, the mistake would be more damning still if the US military was a bit more credible in investigating itself. The recent Abu Ghraib whitewash doesn't give much reason for confidence.

Second, as a blogger I'd be remiss if I failed to note, especially in light of the recent spate of "blogger ethics" hand-wrining by the SCLM, as far as I'm aware, no case of bloggerly mis-reporting has resulted in anyone's death.