In a letter to readers in Newsweek's latest issue, chairman and editor in chief Richard M. Smith promises that "the cryptic phrase 'sources said' will never again be the sole attribution for a story in Newsweek."

Two of the magazine's top editors will be assigned sole responsibility for approving the use of anonymous sources.

"We got an important story wrong, and honor requires us to admit our mistake and redouble our efforts to make sure nothing like this ever happens again," Smith writes.

In an interview, Smith said the decision not to fire any writers or editors over the Quran report was "a tough call. I understand the impulse for people to call for heads to roll, but wishing that we had done some things different and finding that we need to tighten up on the policy isn't the same as finding unprincipled, unethical or unprofessional behavior."

The story by reporters Michael Isikoff and John Barry relied on a single source who said interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba had flushed a Quran down a toilet to agitate prisoners. Resulting protests in the Muslim world led to as many as 17 riot-related deaths.

Smith said Newsweek relied on a senior Defense Department official to tell the reporters whether the story was true. In his letter to readers, he said "we mistakenly took the official's silence for confirmation."

But veteran newsman David Gergen of U.S. News & World Report believes Newsweek hasn't gone for enough.

"I think they should unmask the unnamed source," he told CNN.

"There was an old rule in journalism that if an unnamed source lies to a new organization, that source loses his anonymity, by definition, because he misled people."

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