THE (NOT SO) INFALLIBLE AP THE (NOT SO) INFALLIBLE AP

Robert Bateman pans the THE (NOT SO) INFALLIBLE AP:

THE most powerful media institution in all of human history is the Associated Press. Its news feed is ubiquitous - used, directly or indirectly, by every U.S. newspaper and TV news program and a vast number of foreign ones, too. AP maintains the largest world-wide coverage, and its reader base is nearly immeasurable. Unfortunately, and repeatedly of late, this behemoth has not only been getting it wrong - but increasingly refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing.

Instead, acting more like a politician or the mega-corporation that it is, the AP crew spins, obfuscates and attacks. Now they're at it again in Iraq.

The place he caught them was in a story about civilian deaths at No Gun Ri during the Korean War. The "decorated" infantryman that they cite turned out to be a mechanic no where near there then.

When I later confronted AP editors with the facts and records that showed their source Daily to be a fraud, they blew me off. What would a historian know about this topic after all, or a soldier?

The AP didn't issue a retraction, or even attempt to reinvestigate; and it certainly didn't withdraw the story from the Pulitzer competition. Instead, it attacked the messenger.