Rancid “Instant News” by AP (UPDATES)

Michelle Malkin is on the story of the AP trusted source that isn’t what he or they say he is.

I've been following up with CENTCOM on the Associated Press/sketchy sources brouhaha. Just heard this morning from Michael B. Dean, Lieutenant, U.S. Navy MNC-I Joint Operations Center, Public Affairs Officer:
From CPATT PAO:
BG Abdul-Kareem, the Ministry of Interior Spokesman, went on the record today stating that Capt. Jamil Hussein is not a police officer. He explained the coordinations among MOI, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Defense in attempting to track down these bodies and their joint conclusion was that this was unsubstantiated rumor.
He went on to name several other false sources that have been used recently and appealed to the media to document their news before reporting. He went into some detail about the impact of the press carrying propaganda for the enemies of Iraq and thanked "the friends" who have brought this to their attention.
AP did attend the press conference.

And, what’s more:

For example, we have some of the respected news outlets that deal with news fast and have a relation with many TV channels and the media in general, who distributed a story quoting a person called Jamil Hussein. Afterward, we searched our sources in our staff for anyone by this name-- maybe he wore an MOI uniform and gave a different name to the reporter for money. And the second name used is Lt. Maythem.

What will the AP have to say for itself now? We await, with baited breath, especially when AP’s International Editor (who seems to have little difficulty swallowing Syrian fodder) has so put AP out on the limb sawn off by calling the exposers of the AP’s source “frankly ludicrous.” Maybe he’ll next be employed by Al Jazeera?

But, that’s not enough. The AP, and other major media, must – if they’re to retain any credibility, or recover any – immediately fund and cooperate with a major, independent, published examination of their reporting practices in Iraq (throw in the Palestinian areas, as well), with focus on the vetting of stringers and sources.

There's much more at Malkin's post.

Heh! Even the New York Times takes note. So should every other major media organization, and get behind a full-scale, credible, public self-examination. That should be quite a scoop!

AP REPLIES at FloppingAces with a “we believe ourselves” response. Curt dissects:

Basically a "you believe what you want and we will believe what we want" kind of statement don't you think? They are unwilling to prove to Centcom that this source of theirs is a real police officer. I mean all you have to do is produce the damn guy. Have him rebut his supposed "bosses".
But no.....we get this joke of a response.
Typical

SEE Want to get to the truth about AP's Iraq reporting?

MSM Hung By Own Stringers

Another UPDATE:
Tblumer at BizzyBlog.com phoned the office of the AP’s International Editor (Mr. “frankly ludicrous”), and contrasts this admission with the AP’s wire story crying wolf about possible censorship by equating the Iraq government’s request that facts be checked with the practices of Saddam.

AP now admits that the part of the original story about four mosques burning is down to one that is “badly damaged by explosives and shows signs of scorching from fire.” I am not aware of any formal correctons sent out to AP subscribers to correct this stunning error.

· No name identification of the remaining five alleged victims has been done. A person from AP who called me back in response to my phone request to speak with John Daniszewski, and my message left for him (my message was left with a person, not on his VoiceMail), confirmed this fact this afternoon. I informed this person that I was having a hard time believing that in roughly six days, some local Iraqi news outlet hadn’t published the names of the victims yet (that is, if there are really five other victims). I was told they’re “doing all they can.”

· AP utterly failed to explain how their “story” can possibly be true in light of the following assertion by Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, spokesman for Iraq’s Interior Ministry: “Khalaf said the ministry had dispatched a team to the Hurriyah neighborhood and to the morgue but found no witnesses or evidence of burned bodies.”

And I’m sorry, AP’s last paragraph so over the top I wonder why they shouldn’t just be booted out the country for being immature, childish jerks:
Under Saddam Hussein’s regime, the government imposed censorship on local media and severely restricted foreign media coverage, monitoring transmissions and sending secret police to follow journalists. Those who violated the rules were expelled and in some cases jailed.

Y’know, Eason Jordan at CNN admitted it (a couple of years before he falsely accused the US military of “targeting journalists“), but surely other media outlets were willing to self-censor their Saddam-era coverage of Iraq to maintain their precious “access.” What Iraq’s Interior Ministry is asking is a courtesy that is no different than any other municipal police department, namely that they (the police, and by extension the military in this case) be allowed to have their side of the story presented before news outlets go off half-cocked and issue incomplete and possibly inaccurate reports about what may or may not have happened when incidents take place. Without the context from the police or military, the chances that errors in reporting will take place are greatly increased. Since the errors and lies appear to routinely exaggerate the level of violence and mayhem, and to routinely claim or exaggerate the degree of civilian casualties, their inaccurate reporting could very well be feeding the anger that leads to the violence.

[HT: Larwyn]