..Kathleen Carroll
Posted on 01/03/2007 9:15:18 AM PST by dennisw
My blogging has been lighter than usual the past few weeks due to family time, Fox News duties, holiday chaos, holiday illness--and, yes, planning for a trip to Iraq. As you know, ex-CNN newsman Eason Jordan extended an invitation to me three weeks ago to go to Iraq to investigate the Associated Press/"Jamil Hussein" story. He offered to pay for a trip. As you'll recall, I asked if he would offer to cover travel and security costs for Curt from Flopping Aces--who broke open the story of AP's dubious sources on Thanksgiving weekend and continues to lead the blogospheric search for the truth. Jordan agreed.
I spoke with Jordan by phone before Christmas to learn more details of his offer, which I'm not going to get into for privacy and security reasons. (He asked that his discussion be off the record.) I let him know that I had received invitations to embed with the military and planned to follow up on some of these offers concurrently with the investigation of the AP's reporting. Since our conversation, things have moved at a fast pace on the embed side. Over the holidays, my Hot Air colleague Bryan Preston and I received word that our embed applications had been approved. We have been busy preparing our families and ourselves for the journey. Our overarching goals are two-fold:
1) to report on how the troops perceive mainstream media coverage of the war (with a particular focus on the wire services relying on local stringers); and
2) to report on progress and interaction between U.S. troops and Iraqi Army trainees.
The "Jamil Hussein" story is one important item on our agenda, but not the only one. As Curt and other bloggers on this story have noted from the beginning, Jamilgate isn't just about "Jamil Hussein." Bryan and I plan to do as much on-the-ground reporting as we can to nail down unresolved questions--not only about Jamil Hussein and the Hurriya six burning Sunnis allegations, but also about the AP four burning mosque story discrepancies and the many other AP sources that our military has publicly challenged--including "Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq" and more than a dozen police officers listed by U.S. military spokesman Navy Lt. Michael Dean. There's also the issue of detained AP photographer Bilal Hussein. And we are looking forward to reporting first-hand on the security situation in Iraq outside the so-called "Green Zone" (International Zone) and talking to as many American and Iraqi Army troops with insights on these and other broader matters.
I am very heartened by Eason Jordan's post yesterday challenging the Associated Press's credibility, but am puzzled that his own crew in Baghdad still has nothing new to report more than a month after bloggers first started raising questions. I hope Jordan follows up on the most recent investigative developments in the blogosphere. As of Dec. 21, the AP refuses to answer these simple questions:
1. Is Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim the real name of your oft-cited source, "Captain Jamil Hussein" aka " Jamil Gholaiem Hussein?"
2. If not, where is "Captain Jamil Hussein" currently working? If he is a Baghdad police officer, as AP asserts, why hasn't anyone -- not CPATT, not MOI, not Marc Danzinger's sources [nor Eason Jordan's] -- been able to locate him?
3. What is your response to the CPATT officers' report that Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim denies being AP's source?
The reply from Linda Wagner, AP media relations officer, you'll recall, was this:
Michelle-
I have no additional information for you at this time.
Linda
The reply from AP exec editor Kathleen Carroll...well, there was none.
Jordan has called on the AP to "to appoint an independent panel to determine the facts about the disputed report, to determine whether Iraqi Police Captain Jamil Hussein exists, and to share the panel's full findings and recommendations with the public."
I support that call. But I have decided not to wait on the AP or depend on Eason Jordan for answers and accountability. Bryan and I will be heading out to Iraq very shortly as embeds to advance the story and get first-hand the side of the story the AP refuses to hear--the side of the troops on the ground. (It is an expensive trip. If you'd like to pitch in, we'd greatly appreciate any help. Donation info. below.) You'll start hearing from us soon. Stay tuned here and at HotAir.com. I'll also be filing dispatches for the New York Post, which provided us with media accreditation.
I have notified Jordan of our plans and encouraged him to move forward with his trip and his offer to bring Curt of Flopping Aces.
More importantly, I have asked Jordan to extend the travel funds and security coverage he would have spent on me to the AP's Kathleen Carroll.
Ms. Carroll, you may remember, was the AP executive who derided bloggers for sitting at home instead of traveling abroad to do their own reporting during the fauxtography debacle last summer:
"It’s hard to imagine how someone sitting in an air-conditioned office or broadcast studio many thousands of miles from the scene can decide what occurred on the ground with any degree of accuracy," said Kathleen Carroll, AP’s senior vice president and executive editor.
Yet, from her own comfortable office, Ms. Carroll has decided that bloggers, Jordan, the U.S. military, and Iraqi government officials are all wrong to question her news organization's questionable news sources:
Kathleen Carroll, AP executive editor, told E&P today that she had not read Jordan's latest item, posted Monday, and likely would not. But she stood by the news organization's previous statements backing the existence of an Iraqi police captain, Jamail (sic) Hussein.
"I've been pretty public about what we have done to get to the crux of the criticism we have gotten about it," she added. When asked about critics' demands that AP produce Hussein to prove his existence, she said "that area [where he works] has pretty much been ethnically cleansed, it is a nasty place and continues to be."
It is unfortunate that this neighborhood has been reportedly rife with sectarian violence, but that doesn't change the fact that there is no police captain named "Jamil Hussein" working now or ever in either Yarmouk or al Khadra, according to on-the-ground sources in Baghdad (see here and here).
Ms. Carroll, why not leave your "air-conditioned office...thousands of miles from the scene" and find out for yourself if "Jamil Hussein" is who AP says he is? Or is it the "do as I say" standard for bloggers and "not as I do" for MSM news executives in their high-rise offices in Manhattan?
***
Donations to defray the costs of our trip to Iraq are gratefully accepted. Checks can be sent to Hot Air Network LLC, 554 N. Frederick Ave., #115, Gaithersburg, MD 20877. Credit card and PayPal payments can be made by clicking the donation button below:
Ms. Malkin I would offer to pay for a trip ANY WHERE YOU WANT TO GO if I could accompany you....
*sigh*... I know.. she's married...
oh... and Michelle- try to include item 3) talk to Iraqi's and see how grateful they are for US troops and how many actually FEAR us leaving soon!!!
won't do any good- she'll be accused by the left of hand picking people sympathetic to the Bush Policy- it may do a little bit of good- but in the long haul- the dems have their spin machines primed and ready & America will buy into it I'm afraid http://sacredscoop.com
Just so everyone knows; Eason Jordan is an ex-CNN executive because of FreeRepublic. He stated at a conference that GI's purposely target reporters.
Here are the related links:
E-mail Eason Jordan --He committed the most egregious act in journalism, its time to tell him
CNN's Eason Jordan has no apologies
Columbia Journalism Review Still Doesn't Have Clue about the Outing of Eason Jordan
Eason Jordan at CNN no More - Freep Them - Lets see the tape
I Would Have Fired Eason Jordan
Eason's Fable (Bloggers, the old media, and the rise and fall of CNN's Eason Jordan)
Middle Israel: The legacy of Eason Jordan (Breaking: "Mainstream" Media say Blogs have agenda)
The reality behind 'Easongate' [“Eason Jordan cared deeply about his journalists”]
Believe it or not I think Eason is beginning to see the light!
Stay safe Michelle! Everyone at Free Republic loves you!
..Kathleen Carroll
Our overarching goals are two-fold:
1) to report on how the troops perceive mainstream media coverage
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
It'll be amusing to watch our GI's going gaga over Michelle, LOL
BTTT
Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Michelle Malkin ping list...
:- D... I suspect she'd have more 'tryouts' for that job than American Idol.
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