The last time I discussed "Jamil," the details were still hotly debated, and I was reminded of my relatively meaningless battle over "George Harleigh" (a fictitious professor science professor who had worked for both Nixon and Reagan, and who could always be depended on to sound off about the horrors of Bush).
I soon noticed that there's a downside to debunking fraudulent people or claims. The people who make them up -- and most of those who agree with them -- simply don't care. Because the characters and claims are invented to support what they already believe fervently, debunking them does not "count."
Lies presented in furtherance of a greater "truth" are not really considered to be lies, at least not in the moral sense. The idea is to persuade people, and if fictional people or incidents have to be used, that's OK, as long as it's in the interest of the greater truth.
The problem I have with this approach is that I don't like being lied to. Even when I agree with the cause the lie is intended to support. I don't find lies emotionally fulfilling because they pollute the process of thought. When lies are presented as "news reports," it's even worse, because it makes me distrustful every time I pick up the paper or turn on the television.
The Broken Media's handling of the Jamil Hussien scandal has highlighted everything that's wrong with them. A fake source that they can't produce, lies built upon lies, the inability to distinguish right from wrong, and the unthinking defense of everything they've done when the facts are clearly not on their side. CV also has some delusional Leftist writing a defense of the AP that shows how far from reality the Left is.
despite the hundreds of stories AP files from Iraq each week, and the thousands posted annually since the invasion, warbloggers can only find fault with a single story, yet insist that one is enough to tarnish the AP's Iraq reporting and all mainstream news reporting from Baghdad.
It's not going to work. If warbloggers want to prove that cowardly American journalists are being duped by local Iraqi stringers pushing a terrorist agenda, or that the AP is guilty of chronically manufacturing bad news, they are going to have to do more than flush out Jamil Hussein.
Check out what this goober says. We can only find fault with one story? How myopic can you get? It's not one story, it's one source that has been used to make up hundreds if not THOUSANDS of stories, and damn near each story has been used to hammer against the US presence in Iraq.
The fact that this source cannot be confirmed should bring shame upon every reporter who works for the AP. This isn't just a few crazy warbloggers going off on one story, this is a trend of the AP using fake people to make fake stories that are damaging to the US, and from what everyone can see it's been going on for YEARS!
YEARS!
Not ONE story out of thousands, not a few mess-ups in a month, this is the systematic deception of the American People by a lying media that is pushing it's own agenda! Why is it that every time we "crazy warbloggers" turn around, we're finding yet MORE evidence that the Broken Media is lying it's ass off in the pursuit of it's agenda? If it's not Jamil Hussien then it's the fouxtography scandal. If it's not the fouxtography scandal, it's Green Helmet Guy. If it ain't Green Helmet Guy, then it's the media frenzy over Palestinian funerals that turn out to be fake! Every time we turn around, there's yet ANOTHER LIE pushed forward by the Broken Media that's debunked, and every lie is used to discredit either Bush in particular or Conservatives in general.
Jamil Hussien isn't just ONE story that we have a problem with. The growing Hussien scandal is just another chapter in a book of lies, half-truths, deceptions, falsehoods, and agenda pushing that we've come to expect from the Broken Media. And yes, it's a big deal. Fake sources presented as the gospel truth is a big deal. Lies and agendas pushed forward as "news" is a big deal. And all of this is just one more reason for me to never believe anything that comes from the AP.
When you have to triple-check the "facts" that come from a news report, then the news report isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
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