Reporter on Retracted Newsweek Article Put Monica on the Map

[Burma Jones]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/17/politics/17isikoff.html?hp&ex=1116388800&en=ab7e42ab12d03735&ei=5094&partner=homepage

<snip>
Investigative reporters come in a couple of varieties. There are the quiet, scholarly types who troll the archives and pore over documents. And there are the gumshoes, obsessive and indefatigable, who tend to dress like Columbo, never let go of a story and seldom see eye to eye with their editors.

Michael Isikoff, the Newsweek reporter who together with John Barry, a national security correspondent for the magazine, wrote a brief article referring to desecration of the Koran by American guards at Guantánamo Bay, is a charter member of this second club. He is rumpled, relentless and even abrasive at times.

His article, which was blamed for rioting in Pakistan and Afghanistan in which at least 17 people were killed, has been denounced by the Pentagon for relying on what it says is incorrect information supplied by an anonymous source.

In discussing the article yesterday, Mr. Isikoff, who supplied the source for the article, said: "Whenever something like this happens, you've got to take stock and review what you did - how the story was handled. The big point that leaps out is the cultural one. Neither Newsweek nor the Pentagon foresaw that a reference to the desecration of the Koran was going to create the kind of response that it did. The Pentagon saw the item before it ran, and then they didn't move us off it for 11 days afterward. They were as caught off guard by the furor as we were. We obviously blame ourselves for not understanding the potential ramifications."

Mr. Isikoff is, famously, the journalist who discovered the liaison between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, and it was his reporting that led to impeachment proceedings against the president.

Lucianne Goldberg, the literary agent for Linda R. Tripp, the Pentagon employee who tape-recorded Ms. Lewinsky's descriptions of her meetings with Mr. Clinton, recalled Mr. Isikoff yesterday: "He just showed up one day at Linda's office. We don't know how he got in there." She added: "I found him infuriatingly professional. He crossed all the t's, dotted all the i's, double-sourced everything and drove us all crazy. He's like an old beat reporter - kind of a throwback, for someone his age."


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[orwell]

1. It Can't Happen

The Pentagon saw the item before it ran, and then they didn't move us off it for 11 days afterward. They were as caught off guard by the furor as we were. We obviously blame ourselves for not understanding the potential ramifications."

Well it's nice to know our "news" isn't censored.

It's nice to know that we have a "free" press.