O/T – go to Newsbusters.org and read about the beauty pageant winner who will forego her crown and not compete in the next Miss USA contest – because she’s going off to Iraq with her unit.

When asked by NBC if she thinks her journey will be a “waste,” she emphatically tells the infobabe “NO.” Some others on the blog have pointed out that the military does not pay attention to the MSM’s reporting of the war.

Neither should be, based upon al-AP and al-Reuters’ fabrications.

It’s a bit wonkish I suppose, but at the very least that reporter who is followed won’t be messing with confederate stringers. Maybe Malkin can goad the AP into allowing her to do this. That would be a riot.

Regards,
Peter H.

ROTFLMAO

hugs, kisses, and love,
mwah!
the “ignorant slut”

Read the links yourself:
(1) Malkin asked questions about why AP’s reporting of the Hurriya non-existent “massacre” was so atrocious, and what the mysterious Capt. Hussein’s connection might be;
(2) Eason Jordan supports her questions, and she is travelling to Iraq shortly at his expense;
(3) The AP story remains botched and as worthy of question as ever.

sean, apparently, doesn’t understand what questions are. Wow.

It will be fun, if I’m around sean, to see your continued denial of reality as several AP stories now proceed to be systematically exposed as exaggerated if not false.

WHO IS JAMIL HUSSEIN and why has the AP been so eager to peddle his information?

Get it? We now know (1) Hussein is a captain at a very local police station (Khadra) in Baghdad, and (2) Iraqi authorities find his activities untoward, in fact, illegal. So why has AP been relying on him? Now the real fact-checking of AP can commence. Expect to see bloggers coming out with much, much more about it.

Whether Jamil Hussein actually exists is really a secondary issue. The fact that the AP used a single source for dozens of inflammatory stories about atrocities in Iraq that still have yet to find any confirmation is almost as disturbing as making the source up.

So they “found” Jamil Hussein, but only after six weeks and after attention had been called to the matter by the blogosphere? What if there had been NO attention called to this person’s dubious existence?

Does this also mean that the al-AP has to now determine whether or not it was one mosque (not six as originally reported) that burned? What about the so-called burnings of civilians? Is that now made up as well?

If a story is green-lighted by the al-AP, there must be an expectation that the story was properly vetted, written and investigated to make sure that it meets proper journalistic standards or modicums (as such).

The fact that this person’s identity is now made apparent also now enables other interested parties (among them Eason Jordan, formerly of CNN – so obviously he’s not a “right-wing nut”) to interview Hussein and do the job the MSM is so loathe to do.

Match, set, game. You lose. Now go sit in the corner until you can play well with others.

Regards,
Peter H.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003528028

Lovely.

“WHO IS JAMIL HUSSEIN and why has the AP been so eager to peddle his [mis]information?”

If they finally found him, then it should be possible for folks to get some work done to answer that. Remember:

– Using Capt. Hussein, the AP sensationally claimed that 6 Sunnis were burned to death in Hurriya. There is no evidence of it

– The AP has [mis]used Capt. Hussein as a primary source in dozens of other stories, many taking place FAR from the good Captain’s police precinct. “… in 40 AP stories checked [by Bob at Confederate Yankee], only in two instances covering a total of four stories did [Bob] run into anything approaching possible corroboration.”

Now (or if) we know who Capt. Hussein really is, the appropriateness of the AP’s reporting can really be checked.

First question: Joe Wilson’s new “cover identity”.

Second question…..well, given the first……:)

Okay, it’s *bad*. And there’s a bunch of different factions trying to put themselves in strong possitions and a few different groups looking for pay-back for past offenses and there is regular old crime of both the independant and organized sorts. You know this. But how well do you understand it?

Your understanding is going to be informed by news reports. A false report that six Sunnis were pulled from a mosque and burned alive matters because it influences the understanding of the dynamics of badness and that means that good decisions about solutions can not possibly be made. It’s all still “bad” but “bad” isn’t all you need to know.

What’s more, it gives a false impression locally to people who need to make decisions about their own lives. Crime should be treated one way. Sectarian violence demands entirely different action. When people are trying to find a way to work together and form something stable, a single false report of something like burning six Sunnis alive can do a great deal of damage. If it were *true*, it would need to be addressed. If it’s *not* true, then it’s simply destructive and one *must* ask what the motivation was for making up the story and what the motivation was for buying it.

It’s real people in Iraq who have to deal with the fallout.

If there is sectarian violence (and there is, we know there is) then *real* events need to be reported. Not made up ones.

And even accurate reporting that focuses on blood because blood sells, rather than giving a total picture of life as most people live it, is failing at any sort of higher calling toward “truth” and shouldn’t be treated like anything better than tabloid reporters. If journalism wants to be treated like a profession rather than hacks, they can’t be selling blood and drama in the place of truth.