The Joplin Globe appears to have bought into the erroneous argument that Newsweek magazine was responsible for the deaths of 15 people because of inaccuracies in its article about a U. S. interrogator desecrating the Koran during a session with a Muslim captor.
While there can be no doubt that the Newsweek article relied on only one faulty unidentified source (while claiming that it had multiple sources) and it was a poor piece of journalism, it was not responsible for even one death.
The problem is with people who feel the need to commit murder on the slightest provocation. These people are the problem. They are the ones who look for any excuse to kill. It had already been revealed that atrocities had been committed. This was not new news...it was just another excuse.
And it should be remembered that both Newsweek's faulty source and the government official with whom the magazine checked before it published the article believed that the story was true. The Globe is right about the media relying too much on unnamed sources. Newsweek need to reevaluate its thinking about the use of this kind of sourcing, because this kind of story seriously compromises its journalistic credibility, but for The Globe's editorial writer to say the magazine is responsible for 15 deaths is a stretch.