Fact-checking the AP and Jamil Hussein

“While Bryan and I were in Iraq, Curt of Flopping Aces and Bob Owens pressed forward on the Jamil Hussein angle. Whether the AP used a pseudonym for Hussein or not, and whatever the fickle Interior Ministry is now saying, Hussein’s information clearly cannot be trusted. As bloggers have emphasized, Hussein was a single source for dozens of other AP stories about atrocities across a wide swath of Baghdad. And as AP executive Kathleen Carroll herself underscores:

“AP runs hundreds of stories a day, and has run thousands of stories about things that have happened in Iraq.”

Or rather, things that their questionable sources and local stringers have told them have happened in Iraq.”

Jenny Hatch