Lorie Byrd is, well, sad.
Writing on Examiner.com, she shares with us the tale of the site she’s created that will “keep track of questionable news stories.”
Amusingly, her column itself is full of glaring inaccuracies and hearsay. It’s yet another example of right-wing bloggers trying whatever tricks they can to expose the Evil Left-Wing Media — outright lies being A-OK.
See, if you’re going to write about media errors, it’s kinda important to use an example of a real error. (Say, the media reporting about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction.)
But the example Byrd uses is this:
[I]n 2006 The Associated Press ran a story about six Sunnis who were doused with kerosene and burned alive while nearby Iraqi soldiers watched and did nothing. The source for the story was identified as Capt. Jamil Hussein of the Iraqi police force. The story received wide coverage and the alleged event was even cited by NBC News as the tipping point that led it to begin referring to the conflict in Iraq as a “civil war.”
Investigation by bloggers (beginning at a blog called Flopping Aces) revealed that not only was the story not well-substantiated, a “Capt. Jamil Hussein” could not be found, even though The Associated Press had cited him as the source for more than 60 other stories, most about Sunni-Shia violence in Iraq.
Eventually, in reaction to questions from bloggers, much of the “Sunni burning six” story was retracted and it was later learned that “Capt. Jamil Hussein” was a pseudonym.
Sounds bad, huh? But Byrd has the story completely wrong.
In reality, the story was never retracted.
In reality, Capt. Jamil Hussein was located.
In reality, that wasn’t a pseudonym — at worst it was a misspelling (his name is Jamal Hussein).
In reality, it was the right-wing bloggers who retracted their claims:
“The AP reported that the Ministry of Interior in Iraq has now said a Captain Jamil Hussein does work in the al Khadra police station. I regret the error,” wrote Michelle Malkin.
So right off the bat, the woman who wants to keep track of media inaccuracies is showing us that she has no clue what she’s talking about.
Pathetic.
The Fray
gnomic says:
In America, everyone is free to have an opinion – even if its a lie. And we are just as free to discount it. Most of these people on both sides are preaching to the quagmire and facts won’t change a thing. Besides, this is but a ripple compared to the Fox Propaganda channel.
Besides, Tony Snow, the minister of propagnda, under this administration, has made it cool to lie to the people since there is no accountability.
Robert B.Quereau says:
Lets go back to college and have all reporters and whomever site the source.No site,its a rumor.Deep throat,confidential source etc.RUMOR.