AP continues to be fact challenged on burning Sunnis story

Update: Please read Curt at Flopping Aces response to this latest AP attempt to explain. He has more devastating evidence of AP's printing inflated casualty figures that cannot be corroborated. In fact the AP figures are running double what authorities have been able to find since August.

Confederate Yankee dissects the latest AP attempt to explain their challenged report on the burning mosque and Sunni story.

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And yet in all of those trips to this intimate Sunni enclave, there are a few things the largest news organization in the world hasn't been able to discover... for instance, how the militiamen "burned and blew up" four mosques in the initial report, only to see that number dwindle to one mosque partially burned, without a retraction being issued. For that matter, which mosque were these six men dragged out of? Basic reporting, Editor Carroll. Eighth-grade school-paper who-what-when-where-why.

While we're on the subject of basic journalism, it would seem simple to find names for the six victims in such a tight-knit community. So why, after AP journalists went to this neighborhood three different times to investigate a story under a cloud of suspicion, has the Associated Press been unwilling or unable to provide that basic information?

No one else has said they have actually gone to the neighborhood. Particularly not the individuals who have criticized our journalism with such barbed certitude.

This isn't exactly the truth, Editor Carroll, and if you read your own reporting, you are well aware of that fact. An Iraqi fire company was called into the neighborhood to extinguish the one (not four) minor mosque fire. There does not seem to be any reports from the fire company concerning something as noticeable as six humans combusting in the street.

In addition, we know from your own reporting that legitimate Iraqi police and interior ministry officers dispatched to Hurriyah were unable to verify any of the claims made by AP reporters. They were able to interview the one named source, Imad al-Hasimi, at which time al-Hasimi told a different story than the one reported by the Associated Press. From what little you've given us, it seems he has retracted his story entirely.

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There is much more. What is interesting about the continuing AP responses to the questions raised about this story is how it continue to avoid many of the questions raised as if they are not relevant to their credibility. There is still no production of the source that the Iraqis say is not a policeman and not just a non spokesman as AP keeps asserting. Where are the stories of the grieving family members? At this point the AP story remains incredible.