Jamil Hussein controversy

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This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

The Jamil Hussein controversy refers to allegations that some Associated Press reporters were using fake sources in their reporting on Iraq. In at least one case, an entire news story is alleged to be false - a story which stated in part that six people were burned alive and four mosques were destroyed in Hurriya, a neighborhood of Baghdad.^[1] The controversy erupted after the Multi-National Force - Iraq, responding to the Hurriya story, said they could find no confirmation of people being burned, and that only one mosque had sustained minor damage due to fire.^[2].

Contents 1 Background 2 Identity of Jamil Hussein 3 Credibility 4 Associated Press reaction 5 External links 6 References

[edit] Background

On January 4, 2007 the AP reported that the Interior Ministry recognized Jamil as an active member of the Multi-National Force - Iraq, and said he now faces arrest for breaking the pledge not to talk to journalists that all police officers sign when they join the police force.^[3] According to AP, Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had heretofore denied Hussein's existence, acknowledged that Hussein is an officer consigned to the Khadra police station.^[4]

On January 21, 2007, journalist and conservative blogger Michelle Malkin wrote in the New York Post that she had personally visited two of the six mosques in the report in a recent trip to Iraq.^[5] At her affiliated HotAir online magazine, she posted video taken during her trip of one of the mosques showing a substantially destroyed dome. She reported that this mosque had also been hit with small-arms fire and two of its inside rooms were burned out by a lobbed firebomb but was still standing.^{[5] [6]} She also published photos of the Muhaymin, Nidaa Allah, and Mustafa mosques that were taken the day after the attacks.^[7]

[edit] Identity of Jamil Hussein

According to early AP reports, Jamil Hussein^[8] is a police captain with an office at the Yarmouk police station in western Baghdad^[9]. More recently, AP provided informatin that their source was named Jamal Gholaiem Hussein, and has been more recently stationed in the al-Khadra district.^[3] He was said to have been "a regular source of police information for two years"^[8], however an Iraqi official stated he is not on their list of Interior Ministry employees.

Former CNN Chief News Executive Eason Jordan began a report on the controversy ^[10] with:

If an Iraqi police captain by the name of Jamil Hussein exists, there is no convincing evidence of it - and that means the Associated Press has a journalistic scandal on its hands that will fester until the AP deals with it properly.

The AP's executive editor, Kathleen Carroll, says she had not read Jordan's latest item, and likely would not.^[11]

On 4 January 2007, Editor and Publisher reported that the source does in fact exist. Associated Press issued a statement to the journal reporting that, contrary to previous reports, Capt. Jamil Gholaiem Hussein is an officer in the Iraqi police force, assigned to Khadra. The AP's source for the story was the Iraqi Interior Ministry, who also released information about pending arrest and disciplinary action against Hussein for "breaking police regulations against talking to reporters." ^[3]

[edit] Credibility

The credibility of Jamil Hussein has been questioned on various counts. Most notably, Jamil Hussein claimed that four mosques were burned and blown up. ^[12] No evidence of this has been found, apart from damage to one mosque. AP has not issued a correction concerning this error, but has mentioned only one mosque in a subsequent version of the story.^[8]

There are inconsistencies between different AP versions of the "Burning Six" story. In one version, the dead were taken to the morgue at Al-Yarmouk hospital.^[12] In a later version of the story, the six victims were taken away by residents and buried in a nearby cemetery.^[8]

Despite the AP's characterization of burning six people as "a new method of brutality"^[12], there has been no outcry concerning this by residents or in the local media. According to Edward Wong, a New York Times reporter who reported on the events in Baghdad on November 24, 2006:

When we first heard of the event on Nov. 24, through the A.P. story and a man named Imad al-Hashemi talking about it on television, we had our Iraqi reporters make calls to people in the Hurriya neighborhood. Because of the curfew that day, everything had to be done by phone. We reached several people who told us about the mosque attacks, but said they had heard nothing of Sunni worshippers being burned alive. Any big news event travels quickly by word of mouth through Baghdad, aided by the enormous proliferation of cell phones here. Such an incident would have been so abominable that a great many of the residents in Hurriya, as well as in other Sunni Arab districts, would have been in an uproar over it. Hard-line Sunni Arab organizations such as the Muslim Scholars Association or the Iraqi Islamic Party would almost certainly have appeared on television that day or the next to denounce this specific incident. Iraqi clerics and politicians are not shy about doing this. Yet, as far as I know, there was no widespread talk of the incident.^[13]

Finally, other media outlets (the New York Times^[14] and the Washington Post^[15]) attempted to corroborate the story concerning the burning of six people, but were unable to do so.

[edit] Associated Press reaction

Associated Press maintains that after questions about the accuracy of events were raised, they returned and found 'more witnesses who described the attack in particular detail'; these new witnesses are all anonymous, AP stating that they fear persecution if identified. AP also maintains that Capt. Jamil Hussein is a genuine police contact and argue that the Interior Ministry's files are new and not accurate.^[16]

On January 4, 2007, the Associated Press reported that Hussein did exist and was now in danger of being arrested due for his activities with the press.^[17] Some bloggers, such as Michelle Malkin later 'regretted' their error and wrote:

As I noted on the 4th, 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. But no blogger should apologize for raising legitimate questions about AP's transparency, its reliance on local foreign stringers of dubious origins, and information that sources such as Hussein have provided the AP. I will continue to pursue some of the unresolved issues related to this.^[18]

The Associated Press, which has lost four employees to violence in Iraq so far, has questioned bloggers attacking their credibility. AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll has said "I never quite understood why people chose to disbelieve us about this particular man on this particular story... AP runs hundreds of stories a day, and has run thousands of stories about things that have happened in Iraq." Carroll pointed out that critics should be more concerned with the fact that Hussein could face imprisonment for being a source to journalists, than with how AP handled the situation. "I think a little perspective is warranted here," she said. "While this has been going on, hundreds if not thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed and hundreds of serviceman have died."^[19]

[edit] External links

• "So Just Who Is Capt. Jamil Hussein?", The Lede, The New York Times, 30 November 2006.
• "Say no to AP's shoddy work", The Boston Herald, 3 December 2006.
• "Separating Hyperbole From Horror in Iraq ". The New York Times, 4 December 2006.
• "AP's Iraqi Source Is Real: Now What Do Conservative Bloggers Say?" at Editor and Publisher, 5 January 2007
• "Spherics", On The Media, National Public Radio, 12 January 2007

[edit] References