On April 30, 2005, Newsweek “ran a ten-sentence item in its Periscope section including the accusation that American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet to inflame the Muslim inmates. The item went unnoticed for days, until anti-American riots broke out in Pakistan and Afghanistan and some of the ringleaders cited the Newsweek story to further inflame the rioters’ rage. This sudden scrutiny forced the magazine to recheck the item. It discovered that its single, anonymous source for the Koran anecdote was wrong, and the magazine retracted the story [on May 16, 2005].” [Editor’s note: the author attributes the original article to May 2005, though the actual publication date was April 30, 2005.]
– Frank Rich, The Greatest Story Ever Sold, Page 164