Who Did They Hire?

IBD ^ | November 20, 2007

[Kaslin]

Media: An Associated Press photographer is about to be handed over to an Iraqi court on terrorism charges. The media are howling persecution. But what's so improbable about a terrorist trying to infiltrate the U.S. media?

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That's why the case of Bilal Hussein ought to be looked at more seriously than the "how dare you" denials the AP and its pals at press-freedom watchdogs are putting out.

The AP photographer, who took enough close-up shots of al-Qaida in combat to help win a Pulitzer Prize for AP in 2005, somehow never found the same kind of danger Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl did when he covered the activities of al-Qaida.

Hussein was so trusted by the terrorists that he coincidentally ended up in the same room as them and their bombs when U.S. troops picked him up in a raid in Ramadi on April 12, 2006, not knowing who he was.

He didn't tell them he was AP on assignment at the time and was only recognized by a military man who'd recognized him from the Jawa Report blog, whose Rusty Shackleford raised questions about how close Hussein was to terrorists based on the pictures he took.

In theory, a good reporter should be able to get close to a source without compromising objectivity.

But any real war journalist will tell a different story. Against an implacable enemy, access is given only to those who give something in return. Instead of asking why the military is putting Hussein on trial, the AP should be asking if they hired a terrorist.

[Brad from Tennessee]

Hussein is typical of people working for the AP and Reuters in Iraq. The AP bureau personnel have stayed in the Green Zone for most of the war, outsourcing the dangerous work to local Iraqi “stringers”—reporters, photographers and cameramen paid by the story. These people slant what they report and often fabricate news, including the story about the Sunnis being burned to death outside their mosque by Shias. The Army proved this to be a hoax. AP also kept quoting a bogus Iraqi police official disseminating fabricated reports.

http://www.floppingaces.net/jamil-hussein-story/

[weegee]

At a minimum he was embedded with the enemy as is a reported for Time Magazine.

[arthurus]

Am I to believe they would have to actually infiltrate as opposed to being sought out?

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Happened in Nam with a top communist spy being employed by Newsweek. Others may have worked for the leftist Pacific News Service and other publications.

[D-fendr]

Pham Xuan Am served on the staff of Time magazine during the Vietnam War – and he also served as a communist spy for the Viet Cong.