I talked to Michael Totten at Blogworld Expo and asked him about this. He just shook his head and said that the Iraqi “journalists” would often be relaying 3rd hand information – the Iraqi reporter talked to someone who spoke with an eyewitness to an attack. He also said there’s no way you can vet these people.

How true. But hiring former Saddam era reporters? THey all did it. And when you consider how much the big outfits depended on these guys, you know that the normal fact checking and editorial control went out the window in the constant need to hit deadlines with an interesting story.

I’d like to say that the media will examine their coverage of the war after a decent interval but they don’t want to know how badly they screwed up.

95% of their “facts” come from Reuters or AP news which quotes their stringers and the information they bring. Or it does “jamil Hussien” types who give the reporters doubious numbers.

how does AP News handle this scandal ? They counter with no longer giving names just “police said” or when hit with facts that their stringers are caught lying they seek to cover up by saying “Thats just the pro Bush people trying to keep the bad news from Iraq from getting out”

ITs Dan Rather journalism. “Fake but accurate” is now the motto of the AP News service