Must read: Michael Yon meets an Iraqi stringer for the AP

There’s a lot going on in his latest but you’re looking for the section on “Stringers.” He’s appropriately complimentary of the guy’s bravery and work ethic but anyone who followed first the Fauxtography scandal last summer and then Jamilgate last winter won’t be surprised by this exchange:

To see what the AP might have by way of reliable, mainstream, news resources, on the morning of 07 July, I asked Talal, an Associated Press stringer in Baqubah, if he had heard about the Al Hamari murders [i.e., the jihadist massacre Yon reported on here -- ed.], and our conversation went something like this:

“Yes,” answered Talal.
“How many had been killed?” I asked.
“35,” answered Talal. Not “about 35”, but precisely 35.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“A medic at the Baqubah hospital told me,” Talal said.
“What was the medic’s name?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” answered Talal.
“You didn’t ask?”
“No,” he said. Talal said a doctor told him the same thing, but that he did not know the doctor’s name. He had not asked. Besides which, Talal said, the doctor and the medic were afraid to give their names.
“How were the people killed?” I asked.
“They were shot,” answered Talal as he motioned shooting with a pistol.
“Did you tell someone at AP headquarters in Baghdad?” I asked.
“Yes,” answered Talal.
“Who did you tell?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” answered Talal.

According to a Diyala councilman named Abdul Jabar, the Al Hamari massacre might have involved hundreds of victims, not 35. You’ll find Yon’s interview with him on video at the link. Yon also met a full-time AP reporter named Robert Reid in Baquba and tipped him off to what happened at Al Hamari. Reid seemed interested, but if he wrote it up then it’s still in the pipe: as Bob Owens notes, his story today mentions it not at all.

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