September 19, 2006

Dishonest Brit

One of Brit Hume's favorite methods of attempting to discredit news stories of which he dissapproves is detailing how far into a story or how deeply into the pages of a newspaper supposedly damaging information is buried. Often times Hume simply gets it wrong as we've shown before. But sometimes, even when he gets it right, he gets it wrong. In Monday September 18's Grapevine segment, for instance, Hume takes the Associated Press to task for a story in which the news organization detailed the troubling five month detention without charges of one of its photographers working in Iraq. Hume notes:

Explosive Evidence?

The Associated Press has gone public with complaints about the U.S. military's detention of a freelance Iraqi photographer — who's been held for five months without charges.

Fallujah native Bilal Hussein, whose photographs of Iraqi insurgents were part of a Pulitzer Prize winning collection, was arrested in May with an alleged Al Qaeda leader and accused of being a security threat. The AP never reported the story.

But now the AP is calling for Hussein to be charged or released, saying it hasn't found any evidence to support that claim.

The military, however, says bomb-making materials were found in the apartment where Hussein was captured and that he tested positive for traces of explosives. The AP doesn't mention that until the 36th paragraph of its story on the matter.

But what Brit Hume never mentions at all is far more damaging (to Hume's argument) than what the A.P. supposedly buried. Here is the entire paragraph of the A.P. story from which Hume has selectively quoted:

The military said bomb-making materials were found in the apartment where Hussein was captured but it never detailed what those materials were. The military said he tested positive for traces of explosives. [A.P. Lawyer Scott] Horton said that was virtually guaranteed for anyone on the streets of Ramadi at that time.

So Brit Hume's dishonest game is again exposed. Indeed, the level of hypocrisy here is pretty stunning: Hume accuses the A.P. of burying mention of the evidence that the military claims to have gatheed on Hussein, while he himself completely omits mention of the vagueness and unreliability of said evidence.