AP Continues Stonewalling on Jamil Hussein Story

The AP continues to stonewall on presenting any evidence corroborating the 60+ stories that featured Jamil Hussein as a witness. Confederate Yankee has searched through 40 of those 60 stories and found that the AP didn't do any follow up to corroborate the stories.

Eason Jordan continues hammering away at the Jamil Hussein story and calls for a thorough investigation by the AP into their policies and practices in relation to the Jamil Hussein story. Good on him for trying to get the AP to come clean about the whole subject. AP's reporting and failure to produce corroborating evidence in support of Jamil Hussein's statements do not reflect well on the AP and call into question what exactly it has been reporting there.

Curt at Flopping Aces also weighs in.

UPDATE:
Ace of Spades writes a scathing piece, relying on a piece by Jack Shafer in response to the Stephen Glass incident. If Forbes magazine could destroy The New Republic for running the bogus journalism of Stephen Glass, don't think that someone in the media isn't going to do the same. And Shafer offers a warning that the AP still has not digested after all these years:

No publication is safe from a trusted reporter who makes things up. And hindsight is easy. That said, a publication can make scamming its readers more difficult than the New Republic made it for Glass. Giving young reporters unimpeded access to anonymous quotations is like handing a toddler a loaded gun. Years ago, a young free-lancer submitted a story to me about Iran-Contra that was filled with anonymous sources. I asked for their names. "Bob Woodward doesn't tell Ben Bradlee who his sources are!" the writer objected. "Well, you're not Bob Woodward, and I'm not Ben Bradlee," I responded. As he coughed up his sources he sheared the sharper edges off his story. I never used him again.

The AP, on top of using a source that cannot be verified as existing, is now resorting to very trick Shafer decries - anonymous sourcing.

This is not going to end well for the AP and those that rely on AP for their news.

UPDATE:
Is there any reason for this scandal to die out because there's no indication that AP is going to capitulate and admit that they're using a source that simply does not exist. The questions are going to remain until they adequately address them and not simply state that they're right because the AP says that they're right. They cannot produce Jamil Hussein, and more importantly, cannot corroborate the stories that utilized him as the primary source.

Don Surber finds that the AP's credibility is going up in flames. AJ Strata wonders what else the AP is inventing about the situation around the world and Iraq.

Austin Bay appreciates the seriousness of Eason Jordan's inquiries into the Jamil Hussein situation, but wonders whether Jordan will ever come clean about his comments at Davos where he claimed that the US military was targeting journalists in Iraq.

Winds of Changes breaks out the Monty Python references.

Others commenting on the situation: Sister Toldjah, The Anchoress, Patterico, Bill's Bites, Austin Bay, Blue Crab Boulevard, and Dan Riehl.