Newsweek Retracts Story Regarding Jim Rome Fansite’s “Activity”


Tuesday, May 17, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - Newsweek magazine has retracted a story in its current issue, regarding the statistics of a website devoted to a nationally syndicated radio show host.

The embattled magazine, on the heels of retracting a story reporting desecration of the Quran at an American military prison camp in Cuba, says “false reporting skills” are to blame for a story about Livewithmom.com, a website for fans of sports radio figure Jim Rome.

The story cited that activity on the site has remained busy, despite the emergence of a rival website, Stucknut.com.

In actuality, activity on Livewithmom has grown excessively dormant, with most of its regulars now members of the rival website.

Furthermore, the story profiling the website, run by a fan from the Wichita area who has a second home in Nebraska, failed to report major occurrences within the site recently, such as the webmaster’s suppression of the First Amendment, and the random termination of several members’ accounts - including a member in the website’s own hierarchy.

“We regret the error”, a message on Newsweek’s website reads. "We're going to go back and learn from the mistakes we made so that we don't repeat them."

Calls to the webmaster were not returned, and a call to Rome’s handlers was met with the response: “You don’t have strong enough material today, bro.”

Earlier this week, Newsweek retracted a story that claimed American interrogators put copies of the Quran on toilets or in one case, flushed one down a toilet, at a U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The publication was under intense pressure by the Bush administration to retract the story.

Last Thursday, a former co-administrator of the Livewithmom website, appeared on CNN’s “Larry King Live” to discuss the rivalry between the two Rome fan websites. He said he stepped down from day-to-day duties at the troubled website, due to creative differences. He added that he no longer wears a fanny pack.
- posted by GNN @ 8:30:00 PM