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The AP's non-correction correction (Updated and bumped)
Part 47 of my Jamilgate series. Continued from this post.
This may be the last post I write about Jamilgate [or not]. What else is there to say? al-AP got caught in a lie and is never going to fess up. The truth's on the web where it's available to anyone who cares enough to track it down. It is interesting to note the lefty reactions to the situation, as Bob notes here: Oh, the Hysteria!
Confederate Yankee
I'm rapidly losing faith in America's public education system.
I wrote a post yesterday titled The Case For Outing Jamil?, where I asked readers a rather simple rhetorical question:
Should I "out" Jamil Hussein, revealing his real, full, and complete name?
I stated specifically that I was leaning against publishing his name, but wanted to hear readers debate the pros and cons.
Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised at how so many of the middleweight liberal blogs decided to twist what I actually wrote to make the claim that I was attempting to get Jamil Hussein killed. ...
[List deleted. I don't link to sites like that.]
Please keep in mind that many of the bloggers, and especially their commenters, seem to be afflicted with Tourettes, so if you don't desire to read truly foul language, you might want to skip these links. ...
The delicious irony of all this, is that for their collective hysteria to have any merit whatsoever, then they would have to believe that the Associated Press is dishonest in this post where they claim Jamil Hussein's real name is... drumroll please... Jamil Hussein. ...
*** Update and bump. Original timestamp 12:30 The AP's non-correction correction
Michelle Malkin
Wow. Just wow.
The Associated Press puts its advocacy spin and institutional arrogance on naked display in a story hot off the wires. You know those four mosques that AP reporter Qais Al Bashir and AP source Capt. Jamil Hussein claimed had been "destroyed" and "torched" and "burned and blew up"? The ones we showed were attacked, but not destroyed, in our Hot Air video report and NY Post column 10 days ago?
Well, newsflash: The AP has just acknowledged that the "destroyed" mosques are still standing. The headline: "Sunni Mosques Still Show Damage in Iraq." Here's the lead paragraph, which mischaracterizes the AP's initial reporting and description of the mosques: Four Sunni mosques attacked in late November in the embattled Hurriyah neighborhood of Baghdad still bear scars from the attacks and all are now either under Shiite Muslim control or closed.
Immediately after the Nov. 24 incidents, an Associated Press story quoted an Iraqi police captain saying the four mosques had been attacked and six men doused with fuel and burned alive at one of them. In some early versions of the AP story, which was updated several times as more information became available, the police officer referred to the mosques being burned or blown up.
Nowhere does the AP acknowledge that it reported that the mosques were destroyed. ...
*** Jamilgate: The AP non-corrects again
Bryan Preston
Michelle has the AP’s latest on Hurriya and her response, to which I have very little to add.
Except one thing. In its initial report, the AP accused the Iraqi Army unit on the scene of standing by while Shia attackers dragged six Sunnis out of a mosque, doused them with kerosene and then set them alight, killing them. The AP’s latest report on Hurriya just glides right past that serious and unsubstantiated allegation.
The AP’s original and so far unretracted report, sourced to Jamil Hussein, was a smear of the Iraqi Army. According to the US military’s official report, the responding Iraqi unit, the 1/1/6 of the IA, called the local fire station to put out the fire at one of the mosques and attempted to capture the attackers. The unit, which included an Iraqi general, remained on the scene until the situation had calmed. That’s what they’re supposed to do.
The AP and Jamil Hussein smeared them by accusing them of standing by doing nothing while the attackers murdered six Sunnis with kerosene fire. Kerosene doesn’t burn quickly–it has a high flash point and burns slowly. The murders would have taken a few minutes, long enough for any IA unit on the scene to put out the fire and capture the militia fighters who started it.
But of course, none of that actually happened according to the military’s official incident report. And there’s no evidence beyond the word of Jamil Hussein that it did happen. It’s hard enough to stand up the Iraqi Army when it’s in the middle of a war inside its own country. Media smears when they do the job our troops are training them to do don’t help at all. ...
*** AP Owes, But Does Not Give, Correction
Patterico
Is this a correction? Four Sunni mosques attacked in late November in the embattled Hurriyah neighborhood of Baghdad still bear scars from the attacks and all are now either under Shiite Muslim control or closed.
Immediately after the Nov. 24 incidents, an Associated Press story quoted an Iraqi police captain saying the four mosques had been attacked and six men doused with fuel and burned alive at one of them. In some early versions of the AP story, which was updated several times as more information became available, the police officer referred to the mosques being burned or blown up.
Uh, AP? You also reported that Sunnis had claimed the mosques were destroyed: Sunni residents in a volatile northwest Baghdad neighborhood claimed Friday that revenge-seeking Shiite militiamen had destroyed four Sunni mosques, burned homes and killed many people, while the Shiite-dominated police force stood by and did nothing. ...
So were four mosques “destroyed,” as the AP claimed in stories still available on Nexis? It sure doesn’t sound that way: Since then, the AP has confirmed damage at three of the four mosques, including burn damage at two and slight damage at a third.
Unless “destroyed” has been redefined to encompass “slight damage,” it looks like the AP finally owes readers a correction.
This isn’t it, AP. A correction entails owning up to your mistakes and explaining how you got it wrong.
*** AP (and Now Sadly, No!) Owes a Correction
Patterico
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