A source for over 60 Associated Press stories from Baghdad reportedly is an Iraqi policeman (according to an Iraqi official) and may face arrest for speaking to the AP. Ironically, it is unlikely that anything will happen to the man, so long as the AP continues to refuse to identify him (which makes me less concerned about the heavy-handed MoI tactics here). The AP describes him as the source for a story “about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.” But that description leaves out a few salient facts.
In the original AP story, Hussein claimed that militiamen “burned and blew up four mosques and torched several homes” in Hurriyah. The Multi-Nation Corps stated that an Iraqi Army patrol found only one mosque had been burned. The AP’s follow-up story refers to a single mosque; Capt. Hussein’s claim of four mosques, afaik, has never been repeated, let alone substantiated. “Armed Liberal” Marc Danziger had two equally anonymous sources (likely journos with al Sabah) tell him that “at least two of the mosques in question are just fine.”
The AP’s other source—a Sunni elder—recanted after being visited by a representative of the defense minister. The AP may suspect coercion, but in the midst of a sectarian conflict, a Sunni elder is not exactly an unbiased source, either. The AP’s follow-up relied on three anonymous Sunnis; one claimed that he and others “took the six immolation victims to the Sunni cemetery near Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib suburb and buried them after the gunbattle.” But the AP’s original story reported that two (also anonymous) workers at Kazamiyah Hospital confirmed that the bodies were taken to the morgue at their facility (though there is no such morgue, just a freezer). Muslims are even more averse to exhuming bodies than Christians, which makes the AP’s second version—entirely anonymously sourced—near-impossible to verify.
The AP’s initial response to questions raised about Capt. Hussein stated that he “had a record of reliability and truthfulness,” neglecting to mention that the AP itself could not verify at least one of his prior claims and had contrary information. Moreover, The New York Times was unable to substantiate the story and reported that some neighborhood residents denied it. Similarly, the Washington Post reported that two local imams denied such an attack took place. Months later, disgraced former CNN exec. Eason Jordan found “conflicting and unconfirmed information regarding whether there’s a Captain Hussein and whether the reported immolation happened.” (I expect the left-leaning blogs that suddenly discover the Jamil Hussein story now will focus on the eeeevil right-wing blogs and largely ignore that The New York Times, WaPo and IraqSlogger were all a part of this particular VRWC.)
We now know there is a Capt. Hussein, but we pretty much knew that already; he appears to have been a source for al Jazeera before he was a source for the AP. But we are not much closer to knowing who he is—his background, possible biases arising from that background, the origin of his ability to be intimately aware of incidents outside his jurisdiction, why he claimed four mosques were burned, and so on. Nor are these moot questions, as it seems that most of the AP stories sourced to Hussein are not corroborated by other press accounts. Indeed, in this case, there remains no evidence of his claim that four mosques were attacked, and only the word of three anonymous Sunnis that six people were burned alive (one of whom contradicted the first AP story in one respect).
I do not expect the AP to respond to those questions any better than it did questions about Capt. Hussein. With a Gallup Poll showing that most Americans believe that the news media’s coverage of the situation in Iraq is generally inaccurate, you might think they might care more. Then again, why should the AP’s attitude about its Iraq coverage be any different from its usual attitude? AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll gushed over the AP’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina—stories the AP later reported were highly exaggerated, sometimes outright false. Carroll also denied that photos of bodies taken after an Israeli airstrike in Qana, Lebanon, were staged—despite the fact that you can see the staging on video. Despite this, the AP dressed up the photo-op stage manager, Salam Daher, as heroic. It is not a track record that inspires confidence in the AP’s ability to police itself.
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update: Confederate Yankee finds the leftospheric reaction to the AP’s self-vindication—which he calls “faux-outrage”—“quite unbecoming.” Unfortunately, he doesn’t link to any of the liberals in question, so I’m unable to call anyone in particular an opportunistic scumbag.
Well, at least based on this story. For all your other opportunistic scumbag needs, you may as well start with tbogg—or with that phony-tough TRex squeakhole who’s glommed onto Hamsher’s site, where he’s picked up a readership he never could have earned for himself. Which is surprising, because being a predictable, midget-brained thinker, he’s a natural draw for the amen chorus in the “reality-based” community, where lies are truths if you repeat them insistently, especially when your equally soulless comrades agree to pretend to believe the lies right along with you.
Maybe he just needed to show some cleavage. Or offer to give Ned Lamont a nice backrub.
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update 2: Plenty of opportunistic yelpers in the comments over at CY. The gist of their complaints: “YOU WINGNUTS HAVE KILLED JAMIL HUSSEIN WITH YOUR MEDDLING WAYS!”
Which I’ve come to translate almost automatically as “Blah Blah Blah TRUTHINESS AND FAUX INDIGNATION LOUDLY TRUMPETED IS THE EQUIVALENT OF A MORALLY SUPERIOR POSITION, JUST BECAUSE blah blah splurp.”
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update 3: Kathleen Carroll ”never quite understood why people chose to disbelieve us about this particular man on this particular story,” which is no surprise, given that she is not inclined to actually read criticism of the AP. In addition to the reasons stated above, I would also refer Ms. Carroll to the JunkYardBlog, which notes—in addition to the points raised here—that:
before Capt. Jamil Hussein came on the scene, “Police officials in the region told Associated Press reporters that nothing had happened in the Hurriyah district…”
… and further notes that Mary Katharine Ham caught the AP fibbing about who first told them the story.
Kasl, as always, great work, the best summary of the issues related to this dustup that I’ve read.
We can start the predictions that the usual suspects will be along in all of their foaming glory to taunt the poor ‘thugs. Why can’t we all just accept their truth that everything about Iraq bites the big one and exercises of this sort only fuel our war mongering delusions grasping after our lost imperialism. (How was that, Timmah?)
While the lefties will be crowing about Hussein’s existance, they’ll be missing the larger point. This whole kerfuffle, along with other war coverage issues from both Iraq and Lebanon, has been a healthy and illuminating process for looking under the hood of policies and procedures for sourcing, editing and presenting conflicts. What we have learned (and continue to learn) is that the MSM is waging a bitter fight to protect their rights to report in their own fashion. The howls of protest from the blogocircus are not just the fevered desires of idealogues. They have demonstrably represented the real concerns about how media functions in these times and whether or not that (mainstream) media remains the best and only conduit for accurate reporting.
Great job! I hope that Jeff grants you another trackback.
Best short post on the subject anywhere, I venture to say. Now if John at Wuzzadem wanted to illuminate it with some photos . . .
He’s got all the breaking stories in advance, here. And the latest on Conyers here.
Karl —
Excellent post. I’ve passed it along to a number of folks, but they tend not to listen to me much anymore.
Also, I hope you don’t mind that I cheapened the post by adding an update. But I did attribute it to myself.
Hmmm. Geez, that sounds like someone familiar. Wait. It’ll come to me . . .
You’re 8000 times the person he is, Dan. You’ve done some great work here. Please know that I appreciate it.
We’re getting yet another snowstorm, the day before my kid’s first ever birthday party. I’m pretty bummed about it.
On the bright side, though, I have some sweet coveralls now for when I go out and shovel again!
I must congratulate this guy for establishing his incredible asshat credentials in his self written profile!!!
Cue the black hole…
Thanks, Jeff. Hope that the snowstorm doesn’t ruin the little guy’s bday.
He’s too young to notice, but it makes me a bit sad.
Jeff,
Obvs, I have no problem with the update. It’s your pad, man. And thanks for passing it along. OT, I note that the site is occasionally asking me to provide a tw, but not displaying a tw—and is doing so regardless of whether I’m logged in or out. Thar be Gremlins!
While I’m here, an additional observation: Prior to the discovery of the Captain (by the Iraqis, who will get no credit for admitting their mistake), what little Lefty take there has been on this story has been of the “fake, but accurate” strain. Put another way, “Who cares about this particular story, when Baghdad is clearly a total hellhole?” And it was portrayed as part of a wingnut worldview that simply wants to blame the MSM messengers for the current state of Iraq. There has been little notice, afaik, of the fact that there is significant tension between those two asertions. That is, no one on the Left seems to have bothered to ask why this particular story was the one that set off alarm bells with media skeptics. No doubt some of the Left uncritically bought into the AP’s insinuation that this was part of some secret campaign against the press—but that still doesn’t answer the question of why this story became a target. And I would suggest, as I did above, that this story set off alarm bells with bloggers for the same reasons it got skeptical looks from the NYT, the WaPo and Eason Jordan, which have much more to do with journalistic standards and practices than with a secret, military-blogospherical complex.
… and best birthday wishes, natch!
Plus, don’t we all want to see a photo of Jeff in his coveralls? I imagine it’s like the Rocky Mountain (High) version of Green Acres.
Jeff in coveralls, holding a half empty bottle of Jose Cuervo in one hand and a fist full of red pills in the other. With the fly open, of course.
Sort of a psychedelic, soft porn “American Gothic” with swirls of tangerine and magenta colors mixed with a soft focus…
Uh oh! FLASHBACK!!!
And they would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling pajamas.
re Update 2: CY was inundated with truly stupid trolls. It was hard to figure out whether they thought ol’ Jamil was endangered because: (a) the wingnuts “outed” him after he was a named source in over 60 AP stories; or (b) the Iraqi government was going to kill him, despite having gone public about him, and further stating he would not be held unless the AP identified him (which seems unlikely).
So Jeff’s translation seems about right.
Here’s an example of the cogency of the some commentators:
Well there’s 3 seconds of reasoning wasted…
Why is it that some lefties sound like they’re six years old having a slap fight hanging from monkeybars?
Because that was the last time they ever won a fight?
Even then, it was only a bureaucratic victory. Probably got the other kid expelled for a the hate crime of beating up a screeching momma’s boy.
LOL, Jeff! Reread the comments from “Devil’s Advocate” and “Liberal Avenger,” close your eyes and envision the 2 of them as 6 year olds screaming for mommy as a tough girl wedgies them both. Mommy and the family lawyer were soon in the principle’s office discussing a fair settlement.
Must go wipe tears…
Folks following via e-mail should know I’ve added an update.
[…] sources. The best-known example is that of Baghdad Police Capt. “Jamil Hussein” the pseudonymous source for over 60 AP stories, most of which were not corroborated by other press accounts, many of which occurred outside the […]
[…] police sources. The best-known example is that of Baghdad Police Capt. “Jamil Hussein†the pseudonymous source for over 60 AP stories, most of which were not corroborated by other press accounts, many of which occurred outside the […]