Say Anything Blog

Curt has been doing a wonderful job keeping abreast of the Jamil Hussein story, and we’re all still waiting anxiously to see if he’ll be able to make the trip to Iraq to follow up on it, but with all the attention focused on finding Mr. Hussein and getting to the bottom of the stories he’s told the media I’m wondering if it even matters if he exists or not.

Well, let me rephrase that.  Of course it matters if Jamil Hussein exists.  If he doesn’t some reporters are going to be guilty of perpetrating a major fraud on the American people, not to mention giving aid and support to our enemies in Iraq.  But what I’m wondering is if the way the Associated Press has handled this entire situation isn’t a crime against ethical journalism all by itself.

When the veracity of a given story is challenged by no less an authority than the military itself you would think the AP would have an ethical obligation to satisfy its critics.  The stories Jamil Hussein has attested to are important.  They are inflammatory and set in an environment that is extremely volatile.  They also present a desperate picture of a situation in Iraq that many Americans would like us to pull out of.  We Americans base the political decisions we make largely on what we see in the media, and if what we see if false those decisions aren’t going to be well-informed.

So why then, with a mountain of questions about Mr. Hussein and the stories he’s told, hasn’t the AP been more forthcoming with help in figuring this out?  Why haven’t they arranged a simple 10 minute meeting between Mr. Hussein and the folks at Centcom so that all this controversy can be sorted out?  Why has the AP responded to criticism from us, the readers, with nothing but hostility and arrogance?  Journalists are fond of demanding transparency from our government in everything it does, and rightfully so, but why then are they so opposed to a little transparency when it comes to the motivations and even the actual existence of one of its sources?

I should also point out that even in Mr. Hussein turns out to be a real person as the AP has reported it doesn’t mean that all is well.  There are a number of questions about the stories Hussein has told (like how he has turned up as the only source for information about extremely horrific, very public events) that need to be asked of him if he turns out to be real.

But if the AP gets its way we may well never learn anything more about Jamil Hussein.  So lets hope, for the sake of transparency and ethical journalism, that they don’t get their way.