Open Letter to AP

Dear Ms. Kathleen Carroll:

I may not be purchasing your product directly, but I am an ultimate end user of the news products that are sold to more than 8,000 outlets around the world and disseminated to millions of readers of newspapers ranging from the Albany Times Union to the New York Times. Your products are relied upon in newsrooms and media outlets around the world. The news you provide can change the minds of politicians and the man on the street on any and all issues.

The actions of your organization are reprehensible in light of the ongoing failures to provide clear answers on what AP has done in its reporting in Iraq, particularly the 60+ stories using the source known as Jamil Hussein, not to mention the ongoing failure to check headlines for outright bias that flies in the face of the stories reported. Such bias and information does not diminish the task of gathering news in a violent and dangerous place like Iraq. However, it does diminish the AP's credibility when it claims that stories are true, when the most salacious facts cannot be corroborated.

Further, how exactly can the repeated errors in reporting all lean in one direction - against the interests of the US, the Iraqi people, and in furtherance and support of the insurgents and jihadists whose intent is to cause mayhem and destruction?

Yet, the AP refuses to recognize even the possibility that their news gathering in Iraq and other places around the world have been coopted by local stringers whose intentions are not honorable and seek to further agendas - not reporting the news as it actually happened.

The AP continues to be silent about what happened with the more than 60 stories proffered by the source known as Jamil Hussein. The mosques that the AP stories claimed were destroyed and damaged by fire bombings are all still standing. Some are even still being used. The military's after action reports from the day in question do not show those mosques having been destroyed and that Iraqi and coalition forces responded and found no one having been burned to death - a fact that that flies in the face of the AP reporting. AP first claimed 24 were killed, then six. The six bodies have never been seen because they did not exist. While there were indeed attacks on the day in question, the facts reported by the AP were exaggerated and highlighted because of their egregious and violent nature.

No one has been able to verify the facts alleged by the source known as Jamil Hussin and run by the AP. Not the Iraqi Ministry of Interior. Not the MNF-I. Not any other news outlets. Not Michelle Malkin or Bryan Preston or Eason Jordan.

No one.

Still, the AP remains silent on what happened in the Jamilgate situation.

The AP just brought in a new editor, Kim Gamel, to manage the Baghdad bureau beginning December 1, and among the first things to cross the wire with her byline is to write a blatantly misleading headline that doesn't reflect the body of the text? What kind of game is AP trying to play? With Gamel writing stories and being the ultimate editor, who checks her work? The bias continues unabated and the AP still has yet to issue a correction on its earlier stories. Does the AP think that this is simply going to go away?

The AP knows full well that many people read the headlines only in an online format, and many will scan newspapers looking for headlines. That Gamel could be responsible for such a misleading headline suggests that the US and Iraqi military forces are fighting each other when that was not the case shows that AP does not care about the facts one whit - it took more than three hours to alter the headline to clarify the situation somewhat.

The damage that AP is doing to the profession of journalism is shocking and will be long lasting.

Hot Air and Charles at LGF have more.