Posted on 12/25/2004 6:20:56 AM PST by RippleFire
From JACK STOKES, director of media relations, Associated Press: [This is a solicited letter regarding Salon's "The Associated Press 'insurgency.'"] Several brave Iraqi photographers work for The Associated Press in places that only Iraqis can cover. Many are covering the communities they live in where family and tribal relations give them access that would not be available to Western photographers, or even Iraqi photographers who are not from the area.
Insurgents want their stories told as much as other people and some are willing to let Iraqi photographers take their pictures. It's important to note, though, that the photographers are not "embedded" with the insurgents. They do not have to swear allegiance or otherwise join up philosophically with them just to take their pictures.
How can anyone believe the mainstream media anymore? But these allegations about the Associated Press are even worse. If true--and I don't, of course, know that they are--they mean that people working with that news agency are embedded with the "insurgents," that they are participating in murder, aiding and abetting it. The Associated Press owes us full disclosure and a full explanation in both these instances. Just like CBS, their perceived integrity and their business depends on our trust. Saying accusations are "ridiculous," but providing no facts only makes us more suspicious.I would go further: What did AP PAY for these exclusive photos? Is AP money going to terrorists?
Has AP committed an overt act which gave "aid and comfort to the enemy"?
more like,
So did the Nazis. People who helped them tell it were tried for treason.
I went to Salon to read the article. I like the way they dance around the subject of AP photogs getting advance warning of terrorist activity.
Yeah, right.
I'm sure the photogs say to the terrorists "I really am for the US but can I take your picture anyway?"
I'd go too, but Salon makes me feel dirty. It also increases their pings. Next time anyone goes, record some of the advertisers so we can call 'em and ask why they support such scum.
Stop dancing around the facts, AP is paying the terrorists for videos shot by terrorist photographers.
The AP knows it and they pay them anyway , AP is no better than a terrosist organisation themselves.
AP certainly is on the side of the jihadists and the peacenicks.
This week in DC, the DC Chapter gave a press conference. Earlier the same day, the Code Pinkos and ReDefeatBush.com gave a press conference in the same location.
Guess which ones the AP decided to cover and which ones they didn't?
Yeah, right, a "Brave Iraqi" photographer who was an accessory to murder. As was AP by publishing the snuff film. I find the entire thing repulsive.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time.
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NEWS RELEASE HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND 7115 South Boundary Boulevard MacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101 Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894 |
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| June 3, 2004 Release Number: 04-06-09 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE COALITION SOLDIERS QUESTION NEWS MEDIA FOLLOWING ROADSIDE BOMB MOSUL, Iraq - Coalition soldiers questioned two news media cameramen and a reporter after a roadside bomb exploded near a Coalition convoy two kilometers north of Mosul June 3. The media, who were at the scene prior to the attack, told soldiers at the scene they had received a tip to be at that location prior to the attack and they had witnessed the explosion. There was minimal damage to a Coalition vehicle, a cracked windshield, and no serious injuries. 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division soldiers requested the media accompany them to a base camp in Mosul to answer questions as witnesses to the incident. The news media representatives left the base camp in the mid afternoon. -30- |
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Right off the bat you can see the amazing bias of AP.
These are not insurgents. These are terrorists, murderers.
Insurgents would not target their own people, target innocent civilians, target woman and children.
Add to this the fact that the majority of these so called insurgents are actually non-Iraqis and the entire AP excuse goes down the drain.
AP should now be called what it is: AAP Anti-American Propaganda (or Anti-American Puke, take your pick).
Remember Peter Jennings and Mike Wallace at that famous "Journalism Conference" where the journalistic standard was NOT to warn the American patrol that they were about to walk into an ambush?
The left wing media wants Iraq to look like Vietnam, so I say bring back a staple of Vietnam reporting, Fragging, but this time, frag the reporters.
The reason I've never been there and will never go. I get enough Salon in my local newspaper (Bangor Daily News) (Maine).
So this could get simple. See an AP photographer and assume there is an attack on the way. In fact, check to see if the "AP employee" is really the terrorist.
We have written a couple of times about the accusations of complicity with terrorists in Iraq which were made recently by Belmont Club and others. The issue relates to the shocking photo, recently published by the AP, showing three terrorists in the act of murdering two Iraqi election workers on a street during daylight. The photographer was obviously within a few yards of the scene of the murder, which raises obvious questions, such as 1) what was the photographer doing there; did he have advance knowledge of the crime, or was he even accompanying the terrorists? and 2) why did the photographer apparently have no fear of the terrorists, or conversely, why were the terrorists evidently unconcerned about being photographed in the commission of a murder?
Salon printed a defense of the AP (and an attack on conservative bloggers) that included this anonymous comment from an AP spokesman:
A source at the Associated Press knowledgeable about the events covered in Baghdad on Sunday told Salon that accusations that the photographer was aware of the militants' plans are "ridiculous." The photographer, whose identity the AP is withholding due to safety concerns, was likely "tipped off to a demonstration that was supposed to take place on Haifa Street," said the AP source, who was not at liberty to comment by name. But the photographer "definitely would not have had foreknowledge" of a violent event like an execution, the source said.
So the AP admitted that its photographer was "tipped off" by the terrorists. The only quibble asserted by the AP was that the photographer expected only a "demonstration," not a murder. So the terrorists wanted to be photographed carrying out the murder, to sow more terror in Iraq and to demoralize American voters. That's why they tipped off the photographer, and that's why they dragged the two election workers from their car, so they could be shot in front of the AP's obliging camera. And the AP was happy to cooperate with the terrorists in all respects. We'd like to ask some more questions of the photographer, of course, but that's impossible since the AP won't identify him because of "safety concerns." Really? Who would endanger his safety? The terrorists? They could have shot him on Sunday if they were unhappy about having their picture taken. But they weren't, which is why they "tipped off" the photographer. Belmont Club responded to the Salon defense here, in a post we linked to a day or two ago.
Now there's more: Jim Romanesko got an email from another AP spokesman, this time Jack Stokes, the AP's director of media relations. Here it is:
Several brave Iraqi photographers work for The Associated Press in places that only Iraqis can cover. Many are covering the communities they live in where family and tribal relations give them access that would not be available to Western photographers, or even Iraqi photographers who are not from the area.Insurgents want their stories told as much as other people and some are willing to let Iraqi photographers take their pictures. It's important to note, though, that the photographers are not "embedded" with the insurgents. They do not have to swear allegiance or otherwise join up philosophically with them just to take their pictures.
That makes the admission pretty well complete, I think. The AP is using photographers who have relationships with the terrorists; this is for the purpose of helping to tell the terrorists' "stories." The photographers don't have to swear allegiance to the terrorists--gosh, that's reassuring--but they have "family and tribal relations" with them. And they aren't embedded--I'm not sure I believe that--but they don't need to be either, since the terrorists tip them off when they are about to commit an act that they want filmed.
Am I missing something, or has the AP now admitted everything it was charged with by Wretchard?
Posted by Hindrocket at 03:24 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (1)
And, if AP is going to actively help them "tell their story", then AP is no more credible than al-Jazeera.
Amazing that Stokes doesn't seem to realize the import of what he said. The AP should be invited to move their headquarters to Qatar.
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