WASHINGTON — The debate over a retracted Newsweek report broadened yesterday into an argument about media and government ethics, with the White House urging the magazine to help undo the harm to American interests and critics accusing the administration of trying to deflect attention from its own deceptions.

Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters he welcomed Newsweek's formal retraction of a news item saying military investigators had confirmed that a U.S. interrogator at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had flushed a copy of the Quran down the toilet.

While that was "a good first step," McClellan said, the White House wants Newsweek "to help repair the damage" by explaining "what happened and why they got it wrong, particularly to people in the region."

Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker questioned the administration's sharp rhetoric, saying: "Are they making the story in the Arab street that the administration is trying to silence reporters about these sensitive issues, and is that going to keep the unrest going?"

Whitaker said Newsweek Chairman Richard M. Smith is drafting a letter to the staff that will include the handling of anonymous sources, such as the unnamed government official who gave reporter Michael Isikoff inaccurate information about the purported Quran incident. Whitaker said the magazine would try to "be a little more transparent to our readers" in providing details about sources and their motivations.

The fallout from the magazine's mistake highlighted another issue: the struggle for credibility between journalists and the White House.

The administration has been forced to face serious credibility questions of its own. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq tops the list, but the mistreatment of Muslim detainees was an issue long before Newsweek mentioned the Quran. News coverage of abuse in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, Guantánamo Bay and Afghanistan graphically contradicted official pronouncements about treatment of prisoners.

More-recent reports have focused on detainees at Guantánamo Bay and the government's policy of sending some suspected terrorists to countries known for torture.

Other issues are related more directly to journalism ethics. The administration has come under fire for giving lucrative government contracts to friendly media commentators and for distributing promotional videos disguised as news reports.

In an ironic twist, McClellan chastised Newsweek for relying on anonymous sources, just a few weeks after the White House insisted that reporters couldn't identify three "senior administration officials" who conducted a telephone briefing about the president's energy policy. Reporters weren't even told who the officials were. Briefings by officials on condition that they not be identified have long been standard practice in Washington.

Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark, D-Calif., charged the White House with hypocrisy, saying: "The administration is chastising Newsweek for a story that contained a fact that turned out to be false. This is the same administration that lied to the Congress, the United Nations and the American people by fabricating reasons to send us to war."

McClellan rejected such criticism in an interview, saying: "We've taken steps to make sure we improve our intelligence gathering. This should not be used as a distraction from what occurred here. It gave an impression of our military that is wrong."

Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio, chairman of the House Republican Conference, urged every congressional office to cancel its Newsweek subscription. "Retraction and regrets will not atone for the reckless behavior of an irresponsible reporter and an overzealous publication," she said in a statement.

The Newsweek report triggered protests that turned violent in Afghanistan and other countries, causing at least 15 deaths, although the degree to which the article was responsible remains unclear.

Pentagon officials have blamed Newsweek, which is owned by The Washington Post Co., for sparking the violence, but Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that his senior commander in Afghanistan had told him the riots were "not at all tied to the article."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's spokesman said yesterday that "elements from within and outside Afghanistan" manipulated peaceful protests into violence, seeking to spread unrest.

Afghans' strong feelings about the Guantánamo prison camp gave an opportunity for "enemies of Afghanistan and for those who are keen to cause destruction in Afghanistan" to instigate riots, spokesman Jawed Ludin told reporters.

Striking a similar note, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the Pentagon last week that the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Carl Eichenberry, doubted whether the Newsweek report was behind the violence.

Eichenberry thought the rioting was "more tied up in the political process and the reconciliation process that President Karzai and his Cabinet is conducting in Afghanistan," Myers said. "He thought it was not at all tied to the article in the magazine."