Jamil Hussein Lives!

Just a reminder to NEVER believe any AP reports that are credited to "Iraqi police officials" without seeing some independent confirmation. Demand named sourcing. And then verify that the source actually exists.

Confederate Yankee has the take-down.

What does it say about AP that Agence France Presse has higher standards? Is it incompetence, indifference, or intentional?

Because it's NOT like this is the first time.

(Ace adds some brief but tasty snark, and in related news The Weasel Times and Stoat Intelligencer has an intel report on the new terrorist weapons.)

UPDATE: Greyhawk, currently in Iraq, throws in his several million cents worth.

UPDATE: Both Associated Press and Reuters have retracted their stories. Bob Owens (Confederate Yankee) has more thoughts on the affair. Key grafs:

Remarkably, these news organizations continue to employ the same reporters and editors that have published multiple erroneous or highly suspect claims, or who have consistently cited discredited or disreputable sources.

Further, these wire services continue to employ newsgathering techniques that rely upon anonymous sources with little or no direct involvement with the story being reported, and often publish these claims as absolute fact, without any indication they are publishing what is often, at best, hearsay.

The MNF-I refutation of the Um al-Abeed decapitation story states that the claim was “completely false and fabricated by unknown sources.”

That isn’t exactly true. Both Reuters and the Associated Press presumably know precisely who their sources were for this story, as they know who their sources were for other discredited stories.

They just as they certainly know, or should know, which of their indigenous reporters—”stringers,” in industry parlance—have been providing these suspect or discredited stories, and which editors have allowed these stories to press based upon the flimsiest of evidence, which often does not meet the service’s own stated reportorial standards.

NOTE:

When the "Burning Sunni" story broke, I joined many in piling on at the lack of verifiable sourcing for such a pro-insurgent "scare" piece. As well I might, for later investigation by independent sources found that almost no particulars of the story were true, that it was at best a gross exaggeration of much less nasty events, with no Burning Sunnis involved at all. It also showed that one of the named sources in the story, "Police Captain Jamil Hussein," could not be verified to even exist, although he had appeared as a named source in a total of 61 recent AP Iraq stories. This led to the speculation that AP was reporting third-hand unverified hearsay (or worse) from stringers of dubious honesty and agenda as factual news.

AP was "called out" on the matter, and vociferously maintained that Jamil Hussein was exactly who they said he was, that all their Iraq stories were multiply-sourced and verified, and that they did not employ pseudonyms, etc. After much shouting, they identified the "Jamil Hussein" source and provided "confirmation" in the form of an artfully-phrased self-exculpatory story by Steven Hurst--one that itself had gaping holes in it, and was immediately disputed by sources named. At which point AP's defenders immediately began trumpeting that the "right wing blogs" were wrong, and AP was saintly-honest, that Jamil Hussein was real, etc., etc.

But when the dust settled, it turned out that the "Jamil Hussein" identified by AP as said source was not named "Jamil Hussein" at all. His real name was Jamil Gulaim Innad XX XXXXXXX (redacted for the security of that poor sucker--yes, I have the name, and "Hussein" is no part of it). In addition, the person identified denied having ever been an AP source. That latter can be justified as avoiding charges for unauthorized communications, though that's speculation. But his name was most assuredly NOT Jamil Hussein, as so strongly and repeatedly claimed by AP. And the specific spectacular elements that made it a page-one story in over 700 media outlets had still been debunked, or remained completely unverifiable.

AP's own "STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES" reads:

Nothing in our news report – words, photos, graphics, sound or video – may be fabricated. We don't use pseudonyms, composite characters or fictional names, ages, places or dates.

...When we're wrong, we must say so as soon as possible. When we make a correction in the current cycle, we point out the error and its fix in the editor's note. A correction must always be labeled a correction in the editor's note. We do not use euphemisms such as "recasts," "fixes," "clarifies" or "changes" when correcting a factual error.

"Jamil Hussein" was an undisclosed pseudonym, at best. Period. AP has never acknowledged this nor issued any retraction or correction. And over forty stories where "Jamil Hussein" was the only named source remain partly to completely unverified, with much of the remainder having been majorly debunked with solid first-hand sourcing, including the one that brought his pseudonym into the public eye. There is still no solid refutation of the idea that much of AP's Iraq reporting was indeed (and given recent events, may at times still be) third-hand unverified hearsay (or worse) from stringers of dubious honesty and agenda being promoted as verified factual news.

AP continues to proclaim their moral rectitude, though some of us might spell that differently. And that's why I don't believe AP Iraq reporting without verifiable named sourcing and independent confirmation.