Right-wing blogs: Let’s make up stuff about the AP
This is funny.
An AP reporter in Iraq, Qais Al-Bashir, wrote a story about Shiites burning Sunnis alive. Conservative bloggers, who hate the AP and the media in general for daring to report what’s actually happening there, called into question a source for that story — and indeed a source for a lot of AP stories: Iraqi Police Captain Jamil Hussein.
But a US military officer and an Iraqi official said that Hussein was not an authorized spokesman. Then, suddenly, they claimed he didn’t exist at all. Despite the absurdity of that switcheroo, the bloggers decided that the AP must be lying and started to raise a fuss.
Their “evidence”? The AP’s statement on the whole pile of nonsense (they called it a “news release,” although it wasn’t) was different on the AP’s site and in the version printed by USA Today. Then, apparently, the AP site changed so it was identical to USAT’s.
How is this evidence? Easy: They simply assigned motives to the AP for the difference!
In posts with titles like “AP Covering Its Tracks,” they implied that the AP made the change because it was backtracking — that it had lost confidence in parts of its statement.
They have no evidence for this; they just like to believe that something nefarious is going on. Maybe the wording changed because the guy who is supposed to approve things like that was out of the office, and requested the change when he returned. Maybe they shortened it to focus on key points. Maybe some idiot uploaded the wrong version.
Maybe if you asked the AP why the change was made, someone would tell you.
Nah. Instead, the right-wingers conveniently ignored all but the one possibility they liked best. Without evidence.
Here’s an excerpt from the AP statement:
Some of AP’s critics question the existence of police Capt. Jamil Hussein, who was one (but not the only) source to tell us about the burning.
These critics cite a U.S. military officer and an Iraqi official who first said Hussein is not an authorized spokesman and later said he is not on their list of Interior Ministry employees. It’s worth noting that such lists are relatively recent creations of the fledgling Iraqi government.
By contrast, Hussein is well known to AP. We first met him, in uniform, in a police station, some two years ago. We have talked with him a number of times since then and he has been a reliable source of accurate information on a variety of events in Baghdad.
No one – not a single person – raised questions about Hussein’s accuracy or his very existence in all that time. Those questions were raised only after he was quoted by name describing a terrible attack in a neighborhood that U.S. and Iraqi forces have struggled to make safe.
Note that none of the bloggers calling this into question is actually there, or has spoken to anyone. All their “reporting” is based on reading statements from the AP and the US military.
Some go even further by making up false charges against the AP and then getting people to discuss them as if they’re real.
Confederate Yankee, a right-wing extremist, has a perfect example in an amusing post entitled, “Absurdly Unethical: The Potential Ethics Case Against AP.”
Note the word “potential.” That’s there because he has made up the ethics violations.
The entire post is based on this sentence:
But what happens if it is determined that Jamil Gholaiem Hussein is not the name of AP’s long-running source? What if it is a pseudonym?
It then goes on to quote various journalism sources about the use of pseudonyms.
But wait. Where did the concept of “Jamil Gholaiem Hussein” being a pseudonym come from? Why, from Confederate Yankee. In other words, he has fabricated a possible charge against the AP, then asked people to comment on it as if it’s real.
It’s as if I wrote, without any evidence, “What if Confederate Yankee kicks puppies? I asked police and animal welfare experts about it…”
The trick is to focus people on the fact that you’re quoting experts, and get them to forget that what those experts are talking about has no basis in reality. (I strongly doubt that CY kicks puppies.) Soon enough they think your assertions were true.
Can you imagine a real journalist publishing a story that consists of people’s reactions to a fabrication? “I’m not saying that Bill Gates is a mass murderer, but if he was, what would the police do about it?”
It’s like a twisted version of OJ Simpson’s “If I Did It” — it’s “If They Did It.”
I wonder what the ethics experts CY quoted would think of that.
The Albatross says:
Funny Andrew, is people like you who would rather tout the all hallowed AP line than pause to consider the facts as they are presented in EU, Little Green Footballs, Ace of Spades, Allah, Flopping Aces, and Confederate Yankee.
Before chortling and entertaining your audience with your sadly predictable drivel you might want to go to honestreporting.com. They don’t seem to share your view about the AP… seeing as how “Green Helmet” has been named the 2006 Most Dishonest “Reporter” of the Year. However much you sneer at volunteer citizens who choose to reflect back and even dare to question our heretofore mega media outlets… it is they who have seized the day.