‘Newsweek’ apologizes (In English Only)
Arabic edition misses out.
Newsweek’s report that American interrogators at Guantánamo Bay allegedly flushed a Koran down the toilet was linked to deadly riots in the Muslim world, which is why the magazine apologized for the story in last Monday’s issue. Except not in the edition of the magazine actually printed in Arabic. Newsweek’s New York editors don’t control the content of the foreign editions, which are published by companies abroad that license the name. So Mark Whitaker’s editor’s note expressing “regret” and “sympathies to victims of the violence” was only in the U.S. version. Editor’s notes don’t normally run in foreign editions, and no special effort was made to include this one, despite the controversy. The Kuwait-based company that publishes Arabic Newsweek, which has a circulation of about 30,000, “can choose to edit the magazine as they like,” says the weekly’s spokesman, Ken Weine. (Arabic Newsweek did print the Evan Thomas article explaining “How did Newsweek get its facts wrong?”) As for the subsequent retraction, which appeared on Newsweek’s American Website last Monday, it was not posted simultaneously on the Arabic Newsweek Website.
—Kate Pickert