Newsweek magazine will only use anonymous sources with the approval of a top editor from now on, the editor said on Sunday after a retracted report on abuse of the Koran ignited riots in the Muslim world.
"From now on, only the editor or the managing editor, or other top editors they specifically appoint, will have the authority to sign off on the use of an anonymous source," Richard M. Smith, Newsweek's chairman and editor-in-chief, wrote in the edition of the magazine for sale this week.
The name and position of such a source will be shared with the top editor, and the magazine will try to characterize the source appropriately, Smith said in his letter to readers explaining how news-gathering procedures would be improved following the retracted report.
"The cryptic phrase 'sources said' will never again be the sole attribution for a story in Newsweek," he said.
Newsweek retracted its May 9 article last week, saying it could not substantiate the report that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
The retracted article said interrogators had flushed at least one copy of the Muslim holy book down a toilet to try to make detainees talk.
With anti-American sentiment already strong in the Muslim world because of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and abuse of Abu Ghraib prisoners, the report prompted violent protests in Afghanistan -- where 16 people were killed and many hurt -- as well as Pakistan, Indonesia and Gaza.
Smith, in his letter to readers, pledged a renewed effort to seek a second source or other corroborating evidence for stories. If the public interest requires the use of a single confidential source, the magazine will try to give the subject of the story a chance to confirm, deny or correct the report before publication, he said.
"Tacit affirmation," as had taken place in the Koran story, would not qualify as a secondary source, Smith wrote. "We will continue to value accuracy above all else."
He said, however, that he had seen nothing to suggest that the magazine's reporters acted unethically or unprofessionally in the retracted report. Reporter Michael Isikoff had relied on a well-placed and historically reliable government source, Smith said.
The magazine then provided the entire story to a senior Defense Department official, who said nothing about the charge of abusing the Koran. "We mistakenly took the official's silence for confirmation," Smith wrote.
Newsweek said last week that its source for the story later told the magazine he could not be certain he had seen the account of the Koran incident in a military report on abuse at Guantanamo Bay and that it might have been in other investigative documents.
After Newsweek retracted it story, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it had told the Pentagon of allegations U.S. personnel had mishandled the Muslim holy book.