Insert Reality Here 

Everyone is spinning around about the Newsweek story. "Newsweek lied, people died" is the new call sign. But is it really deserved? As a small aside... what is with the rhyming catch phrases? I think it all traces back to O.J... Glove doesn't fit, must acquit. If it worked for him, it must be a winner right? Anyway, back to Newsweek and reality. First comes this reminder from VodkaPundit:

Yes, Newsweek and Michael Isikoff screwed up.

Yes, because of their screw-up, people died.

Yes, the US position in the Middle East and Central Asia was damaged - not fatally, but perhaps permanently.

No - nothing will change in the way the MSM conducts business.

Let me repeat that, just to make myself clear: Nothing will change. No improvements will be made. For the MSM, the lesson learned is not "let's stick to the facts next time." The lesson is, "let's be more careful in how we present what we think the story is/should be."

He's absolutely right. This particular leopard won't change it's spots. But lets delve further into reality. I think we're trying to force this into a leopard skinning event by putting blood on the hands of the editors. Somehow if we can show that people died because of this, then they'll have to change. I told the editors of Newsweek yesterday to go help bury the dead that they were responsible for:

My suggestion to the editors of Newsweek is that they get their asses on the first available flight to Afghanistan with some shovels and help bury the dead from the riots that they caused! Instead they seem happy enough to say "Whoops. Our bad."

And while I still believe that what they did was wrong, irresponsible, and grossly negligent, Omar from Iraq the Model points out something very important:

What is interesting is that Iraq witnessed no demonstration at all, not even a single statement of denouncement from anyone although Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya kept running updates on this subject almost every news-hour and have always talked about the descretion incident as if it were confirmed news.

If this is to indicate anything I think it indicates that Iraqis are more concerned about their own lives than they're about the "issues" of the Islamic world's dignity and more important (and here I see our community approaching a turning point) is that people are giving the media less credit than they used to do.

People died because of their own actions. Yes, Newsweek spread the false reports, but those involved in the riots chose to act on them in the way they did. They rioted, they hurt people, they killed people. They didn't have to, just like those in Iraq chose not to. They could have demonstrated peacefully, they could have gone to the mosque to pray for guidance. They could have done any number of things other than what they did which lead to the deaths of more than a dozen people. Newsweek lied, but they didn't kill.