They do verify sources and field calls from wackadoodles (occasionally), although it's usually just fodder for a few giggles in whatever pressroom they've been stationed in, or at the bar when numbing their cognitive dissonance...
Believe me, I've worked with numerous different agencies up close and personal over the last couple of decades (including numerous AP reporters), and of course the hyperbole was just an underhanded, duplicitous attempt to restore his ability to troll on FR.
Real reporters would never stoop to such clearly desperate measures - They would become an object of eternal ridicule if their peers ever discovered it!
P.S. AP would also terminate him if his online behavior became public ;-)