(Part 3 -- Continued from this post.)

CBS’ Blog Not Ready To
Believe AP Stringer Exposes
Bruce Kesler

Brian Montopoli blogs for CBS’ Public Eye. He self-describes his credentials as a journalist here:

I came to Public Eye from Columbia Journalism Review, where I wrote about everything from the press coverage of the 2004 presidential campaign to the rise of blogging to the future of network news. Prior to my job at CJR, I was a contributing writer at Washington City Paper. I've also written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Slate, Salon, The New York Observer, The Washington Monthly, and a number of other publications. Some of my favorite story topics have been youth soccer, public radio, and local politicians, not to mention the TV show Jeopardy!, which was kind enough to offer me a tryout (and merciful enough not to let me on the air).

So, we know how he did on TV’s Jeopardy game show tryout, and there’s no indication of military reporting or war experience, so one might understand that he only gets half the “word” in his post about the exposes of faux reporting by the Associated Press, and others, based on reliance upon lying stringers.

Still, this is the first small break I’ve been able to find within the MSM that there’s even a story. His more experienced brethren within the major media haven’t yet even gotten half the word.

Brian says, “A number of right-leaning bloggers are criticizing the Associated Press for a pair of stories from Iraq,” then outlines a bit of the evidence presented, particularly that CENTCOM questions the “credibility” of the AP’s source, not mentioning much more of the proofs.

Brian then says he hesitates to believe:

It's important to remember that we don't actually yet know if the AP's stories are "bogus." They may well be. They may not. Reporters face unique challenges in a war, and it's worthwhile to question the way they operate in Iraq, on everything from the necessary-but-risky use of stringers to the reliance on named and anonymous sources that may not be trustworthy. But because of their instinctive distrust of the mainstream media, some bloggers have drawn conclusions that, at this point, strike me as premature.

At least, at last, Brian turns toward the game board and admits:

It's important, when looking at a situation like this, to take a step back and try to look objectively at all the facts, even the ones that don't fit our preconceived notions. The blogs deserve credit for raising this issue. Now it's time to get to the bottom of it.

Yes, let’s “get to the bottom of it” and before it’s a footnote to Americans abandoning Iraq due to misleading MSM hysteria-stirring. While we’re at it, let’s get to the bottom of the whole MSM reliance on stringers. ...

***

Burning Six update: The AP responds (to USA Today);
update: and now, a new AP account
Michelle Malkin

My e-mail box is acting up, so I don't know if the AP has sent me anything, but USA Today is now reporting that the AP is standing by its story of the burning six Sunnis:

The Associated Press is standing by its report that six Sunni men were burned to death in Baghdad Friday by Shiites, even though U.S. military officials have accused the wire service of relying on a source who "is not who he claimed he was," an Iraqi police captain.

Military officials also say they cannot confirm that the incident took place and have asked AP to retract or correct the story, which was repeated by media around the world and cited as a grim example of Shiites taking revenge for a deadly bombing that killed more than 200 people a day before.

"The attempt to question the existence of the known police officer who spoke to the AP is frankly ludicrous and hints at a certain level of desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident in question," AP International Editor John Daniszewski said in a statement e-mailed to On Deadline this afternoon.

He added that "we have conducted a thorough review of the sourcing and reporting involved and plan to move a more detailed report about the entire incident soon, with greater detail provided by multiple eye witnesses."

"The police captain cited in our story has long been known to the AP reporters," Daniszewski wrote.

"The AP stands by its story." ...

Here's AP's statement posted by USA Today's Mark Memmott:

Daniszewski's statement today:

The Associated Press denounces unfounded attacks on its story about six Sunni worshipers burned to death outside their mosque on Friday, November 24. The attempt to question the existence of the known police officer who spoke to the AP is frankly ludicrous and hints at a certain level of desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident in question.

AP reporters who have been working in Iraq throughout the conflict learned of the mosque incident through witnesses and neighborhood residents and corroborated it with a named police spokesmen and also through hospital and morgue workers.

We have conducted a thorough review of the sourcing and reporting involved and plan to move a more detailed report about the entire incident soon, with greater detail provided by multiple eye witnesses. Several of those witnesses spoke to AP on the condition that their names would not be used because they fear reprisals.

The police captain cited in our story has long been known to the AP reporters and has been interviewed in his office and by telephone on several occasions during the past two years.

He is an officer at the police station in Yarmouk, with a record of reliability and truthfulness. His full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein.

The AP stands by its story.

Stay tuned...

Brian Montopoli at the CBS News blog weighs in: ..

Witnesses detail immolation attack on six Sunnis in Baghdad last week

By Steven R. Hurst, Associated Press BAGHDAD — The attack on the small Mustafa Sunni mosque began as worshippers were finishing Friday midday prayers. About 50 unarmed men, many in black uniforms and some wearing ski masks, walked through the district chanting "We are the Mahdi Army, shield of the Shiites."

Fifteen minutes later, two white pickups, a black BMW and a black Opel drove up to the marchers. The suspected Shiite militiamen took automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers from the vehicles. They then blasted open the front of the mosque, dragged six worshippers outside, doused them with kerosene and set them on fire.

This account of one of the most horrific alleged attacks of Iraq's sectarian war emerged Tuesday in separate interviews with residents of a Sunni enclave in the largely Shiite Hurriyah district of Baghdad.

The Associated Press first reported on Friday's incident that evening, based on the account of police Capt. Jamil Hussein and Imad al-Hashimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriyah, who told Al-Arabiya television he saw people who were soaked in kerosene, then set afire, burning before his eyes. ...

***

AP calls Centcom accusation “ludicrous,” stands by its story
Allahpundit

The boss has details. Yes, they claim, there is in fact a person named Jamil Hussein — Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, to be precise — and yes, he’s a bona fide Iraqi police officer based at the station in Yarmouk. And for Centcom to suggest otherwise smells like a hamhanded attempt to discredit a story that makes things in Iraq look worse than the military would prefer them to look.

They’ve also filed a new story about the incident replete with what they claim are independent corroborating accounts from eyewitnesses: ...

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Part 3 of a series. Read Part 4 here.