NP: The Exies, Head For The Door

I've been saving URLs for stories on the unfolding, or even unraveling, story of Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay, but Deb Reichmann of the Associated Press covers it quickly and succinctly in an article that appeared in today's Sun-Times.

I'm sure there are those on the right still intent on pillorying Newsweek over their handling of the story, but it's becoming a harder and harder argument to sustain. I'd go so far as to say that Newsweek deserves an apology or two.

I'm somewhat disappointed that Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine seems to have flatly ignored the recent relevations, since they don't fit into his overarching "big media are evil dinosaurs that will victims of the new evolution" aesthetic that had him all over the story initially.

Again, this is one of those things that troubles me greatly about the modern media landscape. The White House went so hard after Newsweek when the story broke that it's the part people are going to remember. They won't remember Scott McClellan backtracking on saying Newsweek had blood on its hands. They won't remember the official U.S. reports of actual Quran abuse and the riots that they caused. That there were incidents, and that Newsweek just got a couple of details wrong because of a balky source.

Nope, the meme was "Newsweek caused death and pestilence througout the land," and once it was sufficiently entrenched so that new information would have a tough time changing it, hey, Deep Throat!

UPDATE: Terry Neal has a good summary in the Washington Post as well.