CENTCOM says AP’s "Iraqi police source" isn’t Iraqi police -- Part 25 -- Continued from this post.

A Correction About Jamil Hussein!
See-Dubya

Unfortunately, the correction in question is not from the AP, but it’s a good one nonetheless. On Dec. 19th, Media Matters cranky-pants Eric Boehlert misquoted me and changed the meaning of what I said. He also wrote about the “deafening silence” from the “warbloggers” about the tragic murder of AP cameraman Aswan Ahmed Lutfallah–which I had blogged about. I set Boehlert straight here, and his latest column corrects it about as grudgingly as possible:

[...]

One could easily turn the tables on Boehlert and say, for example, “No anti-war blogger has noted the death of (specific American troop X) or (specific piece of good news Y). Therefore, they all hate the troops.” But extrapolating that from a single uncovered story would be meaningless, incorrect, and laughably transparent. It’s as false a caricature as Boelhert offers of “warbloggers”: that all of us think every foreign correspondent is basically Ramzi Yousef with a microphone.  ...

***

How Is A Priori Synthetic Journalism Possible? - Ask IraqSlogger!
Armed Liberal

I was hopeful when Eason Jordan started Iraqslogger - I really do think we need a better pipeline into news from and about Iraq, and I believed that this venture had a lot of potential. Maybe it still does.

Maybe not so much.

First, Omar, over at Iraq the Model, tears up a detail- (and error-) rich article about Iraqi media. The clear point of the IraqSlogger article was that the Iraqi media are too intimidated or politically connected to report on the (horrible) truth that is being reported in media abroad.

A few of Omar's points: ...

...there's a lot more.

I know, I know, the array of wrong facts doesn't mean the story is wrong. And in fact, Omar makes on point that may be somewhat supportive of the story.

But is it too much to ask that news 'analysis' be analytic, and proceed from fact and observation to conclusion, rather than the other way around?

Reading the level of detail in this story, a typical reader - even someone skeptical like me - will nod and see the accretion of fact as supporting the writer's conclusions. That is, of course, until the facts are shown to be a tissue of error and falsehood.

Then I go over and read the Iraqslogger feeds, and we get this gem: ...

If this is what Eason Jordan is hoping to rebuild his reputation on - a tired rehash of Democratic Underground - I'll predict a failure. But since there's an inexhaustible demand for facts and stories - made up or real - that prove the dominant narrative about Iraq, he may well get a lot of traffic while he's doing it. ...

*** Update and bump. Original timestamp 00:03

Burning Memories: Watch the AP change their Hurriya sourcing
See-Dubya

Confederate Yankee thinks he’s so clever, poking holes in the AP’s version of the Sunni-burning in Hurriya. When first revisiting the story, the AP reported that “two workers from Kazamiyah Hospital” confirmed that “bodies from the clashes and immolation” had shown up at the Kazamiyah hospital morgue.

Well, CY says that according to an Iraqi Brigadier General (not named Jamil Hussein) in an exchange with Multinational Corps-Iraq’s Public Affairs Officer, there is no morgue in Kazamiyah hospital.

Think that’s a pretty good catch, huh? Maybe the AP caught it themselves, because on November 28th, when they re-visited Hurriya after more challenges, this is what a witness told them:

One witness said he and other people from the neighborhood took the six immolation victims to the Sunni cemetery near Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib suburb and buried them after the gunbattle. That witness said one of the victims was the Mustafa mosque muezzin or prayer caller, Ahmed al-Mashadani. He did not know the names of the five others, but said they were all members of the al-Mashadani tribe.

Is this how the AP corrects its stories? Whether there is a morgue at Kazamiyah hospital or not, the destination of the bodies changed within three days, without notice or explanation. Why would we presume this witness–supposedly one of their two anonymous eyewitnesses to the burning–is any more reliable than the fellow who said the bodies went into the morgue at Kazamiyah hospital? Which of the AP’s sources lied to them? ...

***

Haven't had much to say on this lately because there really hasn't been any new news. Check out Curt's post here and Confederate Yankee's here.

***

Part 25 of series. Part 26.