Dishonest mainstream media....

Bloggers uncover truth behind false MSM headlines out of Iraq

Well, well, well. The mainstream media has been caught red-handed again ... spreading rumors and inuendos worldwide which, of course, put Iraq in a bad light. But when called on it, they became deathly silent with no retractions or corrections. How many times have we been down this path over the years?

Michelle Malkin reports in The Rumor-Mongering Media (Townhall, 11/29/06) about this latest dishonesty from the MSM.

You will not read one of the most significant stories of the week out of Iraq on the front page of The New York Times. CNN will not make it headline news. The Associated Press has yet to touch it. That's because the story exposes the media's own widespread malfeasance in reporting on the war on terror -- and its refusal to be held accountable when challenged by "amateur" bloggers investigating fishy sources and claims recycled recklessly by "professional" journalists.

The following story was widely circulated around the world:

One of the most sensational news items over the Thanksgiving holiday came from the Associated Press, which reported on six Sunni civilians burned alive as they left Friday mosque services. The shocking dispatch received global coverage.

Thanks to amateur bloggers, the truth began unraveling beginning with the following facts:

1) "Police Capt. Jamil Hussein" [the person who "reported" the incident] is an unreliable, unauthorized spokesperson whom the military has warned the Associated Press about before.

2) The incident cannot be verified.

Even faced with those facts, mainstream media outlets around the world have not printed corrections to the story they blared out the previous week.

Newspaper readers around the world who carried the story have not been informed of any of this by the Associated Press or any other mainstream media outlet. But those who follow the blogosphere have been unraveling the story over the past week at lightning pace. Curt at the Flopping Aces blog (http://floppingaces.net/) has led the way, first raising questions on Saturday morning about "police Capt. Jamil Hussein's" account. He noted an official Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) statement in response to the AP report that "neither we nor Baghdad Police had any reports of such an incident after investigating it and could find no one to corroborate the story."

Hurray for "Flopping Aces" and his sleuthing skills and determination to uncover the truth. This is the beauty of the blogs ... it gives a voice to the other side of what is presented by the mainstream media as truth when, very often, it is not!