[...] pictures of them? It Captain Jamil Hussein is a ready source of information why is this ubiquitous and apparently terrain-familiar fellow so hard to find? If six people were burned alive, where are the families keening for the [...]

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[...] know that cop that the AP keeps quoting in its pessimistic Iraq [...]

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AP whitewashes Ahmadinejad (again)

Ali Akbar and the AP can’t find time to report the highlights of a December 20th article on Ahmadinejad from AFP. In it, the Iranian president’s message appears far more ominous and certainly more relevant to American readers than the AP’s whitewashe…

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We are supposed to believe that with the reality that police stations there are like bunkers to hide in and so many police are targeted for takeouts and I don’t mean KFC that this guy is all over Baghdad like a two bit whore with a free bus pass.

The geography well documented here tells the story. The whole thing defies logic now that it is being analyzed.

At best his stories of other parts of the city would only be charitably described as hearsay evidence.

The chance of actual first hand knowledge of all these sites stretches the reality on the ground.

As many have said , it is not just about this guy, the story has many other holes semi trucks could fit thru.

Now we have a critic of all this who wishes to practice the time honored tradition of shoot the messenger rather than pop the zit on his nose.

In all the flap over this one story and the food fight over the flap, how many other bogus news items may have slipped under the radar due to only so much available attention span.

A fact not consider by media defenders.

Houston we have a problem!

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Curt,

Thanks again for the continued posting on these serious allegations concerning AP. While I don’t have trackback working, I have linked your post and others from the start, including this post

It appears the “big guns” are circling the wagons and blaming both sides for the bias. FROM CBS/AP (PUBLIC EYE):

“In that sense, the outlets that exist for the explicit purpose of rooting out bias – liberal or conservative — don’t necessarily help so much. Certainly, biases exist, and sometimes they are reflected inappropriately. But if you’re looking hard enough for bias one way or the other, you’ll probably find it – maybe even both ways.”

(Link to complete post)

Major news sources have just as much at stake here for the obvious reasons. With the like’s of Mapes, Rather, CNN and Jordan, and now AP, how much of “historical facts” will need revision?

p.s. spacing in your HTML doesn’t appear to be working in my “preview” of this comment. please edit if you prefer.

Rov

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I think the best answer to that was given by Lt. Col. Robert Bateman in my post here.

The AP cites their source as being an officer in the Yarmouk district of Baghdad. Fine. Most people in the U.S. and the world don’t know Baghdad’s geography. But the question that hit me is “why is somebody in Yarmouk the main quoted source (originally) for a story about events in Hurriyah?”

Yarmouk is a neighborhood on the north side of what many people know as “Route Irish.” Between Yarmouk and Hurriyah neighborhood are the districts of Al Andalous and Al Mansoor (parallel w/ each other), above that is Al Mutanabbi, and above that is Al Urubah … before you get to Hurriyah. It’s more than 3 miles away. Now for country folk like me, 3 miles isn’t but spitting distance. But in a city of 7 million, like NYC or Baghdad, 3 miles is a huge distance.

In other words, in going to their “normal” source for this story, the AP went to the equivalent of a Brooklyn local police precinct for a story that occurred in northern Yonkers! Hello? What would a cop in Brooklyn know about a crime in Yonkers? That’s what doesn’t make sense to me. (And why didn’t the AP reveal, until challenged, that this source was not from the district where the events allegedly occurred, or even from a neighboring district, but is from a moderately distant part of this 7-million-person city?)

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I just have a couple questions. How large of an area do police officers usually cover, and how many police stations are in Baghdad. Given how much I drive around a day I’m failing to see how covering 5 and 7 miles is that big of a deal. However I’m not a cop so I don’t know how they normally operate.

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Maybe AP should take lessons from Reuters. Reuters doesn’t attempt to name any specific sources. Today’s report from Reuters:

BAGHDAD – Iraqi police found 76 bodies around Baghdad, all with gunshot wounds and most with signs of torture, the Interior Ministry said.

See? Simple. One sentance, no specific sources. Maybe Reuters has been in this business longer and know how to report iffy numbers.

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Absolutely outstanding work, Curt. I linked from CENTCOM says AP’s "Iraqi police source" isn’t Iraqi police — Part 22

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Tracing “Jamil Hussein’s” footsteps
and ignoring anti-blog hatred

CENTCOM says AP’s Iraqi police source isn’t Iraqi police — Part 22 — Continued from this post. In which an assistant editorial features editor at The Wall Street Journal — he’s been working there since way back in ’05! –

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