Who is Jamil Hussein?

[xrayzebra]

So the terraist have already won in LA and Miami.

All the more reason to make more abroad.

That is your stated opinion. Not mine. I was talking about
violent deaths. Don't attempt to put words in my mouth.

And by the way it is spelled: terrorist.

[clambake]

You forgot DC, Ray.

[xrayzebra]

Clam, the stalker. No, I haven't forgotten any city. But obviously
you did. Most of DC is brain dead anyhow. After all that is where
the politicians hang out and just look at their actions. And the
condition of the city. Or maybe you have never been there. It is
slums from one end to the other.

[clambake]

I completely agree about the politicians thing. Can you believe the coming out of our white house?

Can you tell me anything about the ethnic makeup of the residents in DC?

[ChumpDumper]

And by the way it is spelled: terrorist.

Bush doen't pronounce it that way.

[PixelPusher]

I'm gonna pull a Yoni and Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V from a blog.

Exposed: The right's sleazy strategy for deflecting bad news from Iraq
Last week, we got a lot of traffic for writing about the bizarre and false claim that a grieving Iraqi woman in a Reuters news photograph was really a Photoshopped "Bush in a burqa." We noted that this was just part of a broader tactic, to denigrate all reporting about a war gone terribly wrong by nitpicking the photojournalism of the fighting in Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

This is done using a combination of phony allegations that photographers are working with the enemy or their one big "get" -- fairly trivial, in the broader picture -- of a Reuters freelancer who added smoke to a Beirut bombing photo -- to claim that the real problem over there is biased reporting and not a failed policy that has claimed 2,900 American lives while plunging Iraq into civil war.

Now comes the flap over a mosque attack in Baghdad, and a dispute over the news account -- trumpted on this Daily News front page at top -- that six Sunni worshippers were burned alive. This Huffington Post post does a good job of breaking down the mixed signals on whether this event really happened as reported by the AP. It's clear to me that a) The AP based its article on information from a trusted and previously reliable source, which is no guarantee of avoiding an error but is also the proven and accepted way all over the world that journalists gather news and b) even if the report were wrong, and I'm not convinced that it is, it was in the context of horrific -- and demonstrably true -- escalating violence in Baghdad.

Now, Gal Beckerman from Columbia Journalism Review puts it all in its proper context:

It is important to get to the truth here. But the point is that the bloggers and the U.S. Army, who reflexively denied the initial account, did so not because they were concerned with accuracy. They picked on it because they saw a chance to use a potentially false story -- though it seems clear now that it might be true after all -- as a way of throwing into question all the reporting from Iraq and, more specifically, undermining the characterization of the situation in the country as abysmal.

This is far from a Nazi tactic, but that doesn't mean it's not worthy of note. Journalism, like any human endeavor, is inherently flawed. Getting a story wrong -- in a big way or a little way -- is unacceptable and reporters should (and do) strive to get everything right. When they fail in this effort, it is not a sign of a conspiracy or an indication that the effort was in bad faith. It is just a mistake.

In fact, it's almost not worth swatting at these gnats from the 101st Fighting Keyboard Commandos. I'd rather just concede, and let them have as their main talking points on the Middle East: The fact that smoke was added to a picture of a real Israeli bombing of Lebanon, that the AP printed an incorrect story about one of the hundreds of deadly acts of sectarian violence in Iraq, and even the allegation -- totally unproven and not resulting in any actual charges -- that one Iraqi photographer who has worked with the AP has ties to the insurgents.

For our main talking points that the Iraq war is immoral and that U.S. involvement needs to end, we'll take the lies about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam's ties to al-Qaeda that didn't exist, and the unrelentingly sad fact that more than 2,900 Americans and tens upon tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have now died in an unnnecessary civil war, all for this mistake.

Let's see who wins that one.

[Yonivore]

I'm gonna pull a Yoni and Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V from a blog.

You're not near as good at it as I am. That made very little sense.

From your first link in the post:

There are two main objections. To sum them up, they claim the AP was aiding the enemy when one of its photographers, who has sources in the anti-U.S. insurgency, went to a rally and captured a shot of insurgents shooting two Iraqi election workers. The other is general, that too many of the pictures are "pro-insurgent" or that none of them depict "heroic" actions by American troops.

Powerline never said the workers or the murderers were at a rally. That was the whole reason to question the photographer's involvement. It was a seemingly random act that occurred in the middle of an intersection in sprawling Baghdad.

How did the AP Photographer just happen to be there?

I notice that Attytood has to change the cir stance in order to make it seem as though Powerline was exaggerating the su ious nature of the picture.


Baghdad - A gunman, left, shoots an Iraqi election worker during an attack on Haifa Street, a base of Sunni Arab insurgents. About 30 men attacked a car carrying five of the workers, executing three at point blank range. (Photo by AP stringer, December 19, 2004.)

Here's what Powerline actually said, to which Attytood linked.

The issue relates to the shocking photo, recently published by the AP, showing three terrorists in the act of murdering two Iraqi election workers on a street during daylight. The photographer was obviously within a few yards of the scene of the murder, which raises obvious questions, such as 1) what was the photographer doing there; did he have advance knowledge of the crime, or was he even accompanying the terrorists? and 2) why did the photographer apparently have no fear of the terrorists, or conversely, why were the terrorists evidently unconcerned about being photographed in the commission of a murder?

Salon printed a defense of the AP (and an attack on conservative bloggers) that included this anonymous comment from an AP spokesman:

A source at the Associated Press knowledgeable about the events covered in Baghdad on Sunday told Salon that accusations that the photographer was aware of the militants' plans are "ridiculous." The photographer, whose iden y the AP is withholding due to safety concerns, was likely "tipped off to a demonstration that was supposed to take place on Haifa Street," said the AP source, who was not at liberty to comment by name. But the photographer "definitely would not have had foreknowledge" of a violent event like an execution, the source said.

So the AP admitted that its photographer was "tipped off" by the terrorists. The only quibble asserted by the AP was that the photographer expected only a "demonstration," not a murder. So the terrorists wanted to be photographed carrying out the murder, to sow more terror in Iraq and to demoralize American voters. That's why they tipped off the photographer, and that's why they dragged the two election workers from their car, so they could be shot in front of the AP's obliging camera. And the AP was happy to cooperate with the terrorists in all respects. We'd like to ask some more questions of the photographer, of course, but that's impossible since the AP won't identify him because of "safety concerns." Really? Who would endanger his safety? The terrorists? They could have shot him on Sunday if they were unhappy about having their picture taken. But they weren't, which is why they "tipped off" the photographer. Belmont Club responded to the Salon defense here, in a post we linked to a day or two ago.

Now there's more: Jim Romanesko got an email from another AP spokesman, this time Jack Stokes, the AP's director of media relations. Here it is:

Several brave Iraqi photographers work for The Associated Press in places that only Iraqis can cover. Many are covering the communities they live in where family and tribal relations give them access that would not be available to Western photographers, or even Iraqi photographers who are not from the area.

Insurgents want their stories told as much as other people and some are willing to let Iraqi photographers take their pictures. It's important to note, though, that the photographers are not "embedded" with the insurgents. They do not have to swear allegiance or otherwise join up philosophically with them just to take their pictures.

That makes the admission pretty well complete, I think. The AP is using photographers who have relationships with the terrorists; this is for the purpose of helping to tell the terrorists' "stories." The photographers don't have to swear allegiance to the terrorists--gosh, that's reassuring--but they have "family and tribal relations" with them. And they aren't embedded--I'm not sure I believe that--but they don't need to be either, since the terrorists tip them off when they are about to commit an act that they want filmed.

There was no rally. There was no reason for the Photographer to be there except for the fact he was tipped off by the terrorists.

You suck at plaigerism.

[PixelPusher]

You're not near as good at it as I am. That made very little sense.

Sorry, I tried, but I just couldn't bring myself to not credit/link the sources the way you do.

[ChumpDumper]

Yoni's reading helper is gone for the day. He won't understand anything until tmoorrow.

[Yonivore]

Yoni's reading helper is gone for the day. He won't understand anything until tmoorrow.

I decided to follow the first of his links. Read the edit. My reading helper decided to put in some overtime.

[PixelPusher]

You suck at plaigerism.

Let me try again, Yoni style.

It is important for me, PixelPusher, who is composing this as if it came from my own brain and not from some blog, to get to the truth here. But the point is that the bloggers and the U.S. Army, who reflexively denied the initial account, did so not because they were concerned with accuracy. They picked on it because they saw a chance to use a potentially false story -- though it seems clear now that it might be true after all -- as a way of throwing into question all the reporting from Iraq and, more specifically, undermining the characterization of the situation in the country as abysmal. That what I think, yes sir...

[Yonivore]

Let me try again, Yoni style.

It is important for me, PixelPusher, who is composing this as if it came from my own brain and not from some blog, to get to the truth here. But the point is that the bloggers and the U.S. Army, who reflexively denied the initial account, did so not because they were concerned with accuracy. They picked on it because they saw a chance to use a potentially false story -- though it seems clear now that it might be true after all -- as a way of throwing into question all the reporting from Iraq and, more specifically, undermining the characterization of the situation in the country as abysmal. That what I think, yes sir...

Oh I got that but, where is the evidence supporting his claim "it seems clear now that it might be true after all?" And what kind of conclusion is that in the first place?

If that's what you think, how 'bout the opposing argument that says AP reporting uses non-existent and anonymous source they cannot now produce and, therefore, all their reporting should be viewed skepticism?

After all, there is plenty of supporting evidence that the AP and Reuters have been faking their "accurate" news a la Dan Rather.