Do Bloggers Owe the AP an Apology?
The AP reports that "Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press. ... Khalaf told the AP that an arrest warrant had been issued for the captain for having contacts with the media in violation of the ministry's regulations."
Commentary
If true this will reverse the positions completely. It will have been the Iraqi Ministry of Information that has been lying and the Associated Press which has been telling the truth about Jamil Hussein. Is AP owed an apology? If this story turns out to be true then there is no option but to acknowledge the AP got it right and its critics got it wrong.
posted by wretchardthecat at 1/04/2007 04:03:00 PM
14 Comments:
Let me do what bloggers do best and be first. I apologize. I may have buyer's remorse within minutes.
trust(?the AP?!?) but verify.
what Peter said.
While I will await more details on this, and think they will be more revealing than the original story, I think that everyone who writes on the Web must accept that sooner or later he will get it wrong. It's statistically inevitable. But that if one is committed to the truth, whatever the personal embarassment, you will get it wrong less often.
The subtext of the affaire Hussein really says a lot about how the AP and the Iraqi MOI work; and how the MOI deals with the MNF. And to survive and win in this context means being able to manage both institutions like the AP and the MOI.
So I will have no problem apologizing if necessary from this incident, but also no problem learning. It's only wasted if you don't learn.
What if what you learn is how not to get caught covering up your lie(s) next time? Which I have a feeling a certain Ministry official is just about to learn in a very hard way.
The rest of the world just doesn't understand how exceedingly white hot the heat of focused American publicity and interest can get.
It's not just about Jamil Hussein
As many of us have said from the beginning, finding Jamil Hussein will not make this story go away. Actually it makes it better since we can now question him on how he has been able to report on stories all across Baghdad. On why no other witnesses can be found other then three who will not go on record, everyone else says it didn't happen. On why there is no record of any bodies going to a morgue or hospital as the AP reported. On why no family of the victims can be found nor can the vicims be identified.
Lots of questions to be answered.
This doesn't for one second absolve the AP from anything. In fact, it would provide incontrovertible evidence that AP sees no need in verifying and validating its sources. If Jamil Hussein were to escape - provided that he even exists - none of these would have pinned the AP down for good.
I agree with gumshoe1...after a warm body is produced, it must be well verified. After that, no...unless Raymond Donovan has gotten his good name back...then we might think about considering penciling in time to schedule a meeting to have presentations on the idea of possibly apologizing to AP.
Quite apart from the fact that we still don't know whether this guy actually made any of the statements attributed to him, or (if he did or if he didn't) whether any of them were true, we're still left with the interesting fact that the AP felt there was no case to answer even in the absence of any evidence to support their case.
Wretchard!
Don't be too quick to bow and scrape to the AP. There were about 6 (six) "Info Wars" pieces on Drudge today; all against us except for the mention of record snow in Alaska.(Anti-Global Warming) We have a target rich environment to work in. Don't feel sorry for the AP. The whole MSM is canted against us. It is like they have this assembly line of Info War pieces pouring into all available outlets daily. If the word got out to stop it it would probably take a year to spit out all that's in the pipeline.
This Hussein piece actually seems pretty juicy. Some poor soul named Hussein may lose his life over this just to provide closure.
It stinks.
Stay on it.
Paint me skeptical.
This thing reeks of a setup.
I went over to Michelle Malkin's place, and the good "Capt. Hussein" suddenly appears in an AP story. Except, he will be arrested and probably not allowed to talk to the press. That would be highly suspicious.
It's entirely possible at this late date, a well choreographed production of a person call "Jamail Hussein" surfaces to "prove" the AP a "respectable news organization." Then there would be no need for Michelle Malkin to do any on site investigation of the matter.
In fact, if the good Capt. Hussein is in jail he will probably not be available to talk to Michelle Malkin anyway. Hence, there is no need for any further investigation (they would not want this to turn into another Green Helmet Guy fiasco).
Remember the Palestinian funeral where the "corpse" gets out of his coffin and walks away? The same thing could happen with Capt. Hussein.
I remain very skeptical.
That policy of putting unarmed National Guardsmen on the border has turned out real swell:
Friday, January 05th, 2007
A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona’s border with Mexico.
According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state’s West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.
The Border Patrol will not say whether shots were fired. However, no Guardsmen were injured in the incident.
The Border Patrol says the incident occurred somewhere along the 120 mile section of the border between Nogales and Lukeville. The area is known as a drug corridor. Last year, 124-thousand pounds of illegal drugs were confiscated in this area.
The Border patrol says the attackers quickly retreated back into Mexico.
---
Good thing they were unarmed:
Bush would have approved of sending them to jail had they injured an attacker.
AP take out a hit on someone? Geez, you've been watching too much TV. I agree with most of whats been said though- the story doesn't end because AP's source may exist. The big story has always been Sunni propaganda fed to AP stringers, and remains so.
Let’s not get thrown off the track by side issues. I remember a famous story about a man who said that a criminal burned his house down, raped his wife, shot his children and ran over his dog. The criminal came before the judge and showed him the dog, alive. All charges dismissed.
Shouldn’t we avoid jumping to conclusions? A lot of legitimate issues have been raised about more than the existence or non-existence of Captain Jamil Hussein. There may be a real policeman by the name of Jamil Hussein but we have not seen him yet. The primary issue is that “Jamil Hussein” was used some 61 times as the source for atrocity stories. The last one about the destruction of three mosques and the burning of six men and the shooting of many more while police and army forced did nothing was proven incorrect. Three mosques were not destroyed; a minor fire was put out in one. And there is no evidence of 6 men being burned to death. No bodies, no autopsies, no grieving relatives. Nothing that can be held up and shown; simply the word of a man that still has not been produced.
Where is Jamil Hussein and why is he the source of so many atrocity stories all around Bagdad?
Damn, at least I'm brief! George? You're giving us interlopers a bad name.
Here are 40 of the 61 stories in which Hussein is cited by name in the AP stories.
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