Newsweek's "Periscope" Gets It Wrong

One Lorraine Ali wrote a puff-piece on the notorious Hussein Ibish in the "Periscope" section of Newsweek's issue dated today. One sentence there mentions me. Here is my response to Newsweek:

Dear Editor:

"He Can't Pay for a Cab" by Lorraine Ali [Sept. 27] contains an inaccurate description of a television debate between Hussein Ibish and myself on March 5, 2002.

On Alan Keyes's show, New York Post columnist Daniel Pipes asserted that it was far too dangerous for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. Ibish carefully deconstructed the argument until Pipes's only defense was to yell, "Shut up! Shut up!"

There are two problems with this, that can be seen in a posting of the debate at http://www.renewamerica.us/show/transcripts/02_03_05akims.htm or downloaded from http://clipeditor.shadowtv.com/videos/clipeditor/client0/stv_out_1095960853401.zip.

First, the topic was not whether or not Israel should withdraw from the territories but whether its withdrawal from Lebanon had led to "quiet" (as Ibish maintained) or to "anything but quiet" (my view). Ibish and I merely stated these positions, and no one "carefully deconstructed" anything.

Second, the transcript indicates that the "shut up" (said quietly once by me, not yelled twice) came in this context:

KEYES: Last word from Daniel Pipes. Dan?
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Last word from Dan Pipes. Anything?
PIPES: Thank you, Alan. Yes, indeed. I would just want to note that the border between Lebanon and Israel has been anything but quiet.
IBISH: Oh, what a lie.
PIPES: Mr. Ibish, could you please be quiet?
IBISH: If you tell the truth.
PIPES: Mr. Ibish, could you please shut up?
KEYES: Now, Hussein, he listens to your comment. Dan, finish your remark. Quickly.

Ali and Newsweek have defamed me. You owe me a clarification and an apology.

Yours sincerely,

Daniel Pipes

Comments: (1) At a time when CBS is in huge trouble due to its blatant inaccuracies, one would think that other establishment media would get the message that they can no longer get away with blatant inaccuracies. (2) Any reader who wishes to make the above points to the letter-to-the-editor and to Nancy Cooper, the senior editor who oversees the Periscope section, has my appreciation. (September 27, 2004)

Sep. 29, 2004 update: I look a little more carefully at the Newsweek reporter in question, perhaps the worst political reporter in the United States, at "Lorraine Ali, the Worst Poltical Reporter in America?"

Oct. 7, 2004 update: Newsweek ran a correction to its original story in the issue dated Oct. 11. But I am dissatisfied with the correction and have written the following letter to both Richard Smith, chairman and editor-in-chief of Newsweek, and Mark Whitaker, its editor:

I am pleased that Newsweek ran a correction published in the Oct. 11 edition concerning myself. But it is a gritted and unsatisfactory correction.

The original item was by Lorraine Ali, "He can't pay for a cab" (Periscope, Sept. 27). The key sentence reads:

On Alan Keyes's show, New York Post columnist Daniel Pipes asserted that it was far too dangerous for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. Ibish carefully deconstructed the argument until Pipes's only defense was to yell, "Shut up! Shut up!"

I wrote to Nancy Cooper on Sept. 25 and pointed out two problems with this account. ... [details follow, as in the Sept. 27 letter quoted above]

As you can see, the Ali report both generally misrepresented the exchange and specifically misquoted me.

The Oct. 11 correction reads as follows:

IN "HE CAN'T PAY FOR A CAB" (PERISCOPE, Sept. 27), NEWSWEEK wrote that columnist Daniel Pipes told Arab-American spokesman Hussein Ibish to "Shut up! Shut up!" on Alan Keyes's MSNBC show. Transcripts show that Pipes actually said, "Could you please shut up?" NEWSWEEK regrets the errors.

This is very partial. It corrects one small mistake, leaving out the profound inaccuracy of Ali's sentence about me. Newsweek needs to inform its readers of several other matters:

• The Periscope item misstates the topic of the debate. Ali wrote I said that "it was far too dangerous for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories." But this topic never came up during the program.
• Ibish, not me, was the disruptive one; I did not raise my voice a single time during the exchange
• Ali reported that I "yelled" because Ibish deconstructed my argument; but I was interrupted by Ibish.

I fully realize that it is doubly awkward for Newsweek to correct a correction. But you owe it to me, your readers, and your reputation to set the record straight.

Yours sincerely,

Daniel Pipes

Oct. 10, 2004 update: After sending the above letter on Oct. 7, I was contacted by Nancy Cooper, who invited me to send a letter making my points. After some back and forth (I wanted more length, specifically to give the dialogue with Ibish), this is what we agreed upon and was published today (in the Oct. 18 issue):

For the Record

I am pleased that NEWSWEEK ran a correction in its Oct. 11 edition concerning a Periscope article by Lorraine Ali that mentions me ("He Can't Pay for a Cab," Sept. 27). But the correction was only partial. The item misrepresented the topic of the debate (Israel's already completed withdrawal from Lebanon). Hussein Ibish and I merely traded assertions; nobody "carefully deconstructed" anything. And I did not "yell" or raise my voice a single time during the exchange.

Daniel Pipes
Middle East Forum
Philadelphia, Pa

May 16, 2005 update: The world at large may be shocked about the inaccuracy of Newsweek's "Periscope" item on May 9, 2005 titled "Gitmo: SouthCom Showdown," but not me. The article, by Michael Isikoff and John Barry, reported that interrogators at the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay, "in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur'an down a toilet." These few words prompted protests around the Muslim world, including demonstrations in Afghanistan that left fifteen people dead. The U.S. military authorities denied having found evidence of such an occurrence and Newsweek today half-heartedly admitted it made an error ("we regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst").

The magazine's editor, Mark Whitaker, sounded bellicose yesterday, telling the New York Times: "We're not retracting anything." But today he folded, adding this statement to the Newsweek website: "Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Qur'an abuse at Guantánamo Bay."

Is it too much to ask, with these deaths on its hands, that the Newsweek editors rein in the rogue reporting so characteristic of "Periscope"? As White House spokesman Scott McClellan put it, "I think there's a certain journalistic standard that should be met and in this instance it was not." Ditto for my instance.

Related Topics:  Daniel Pipes autobiographical, Media, Muslims in the United States receive the latest by email: subscribe to daniel pipes' free mailing list This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.