Make that...and Over! Not only did the Associated Press make mistakes on the morning of September 11th, 2001, which exacerbated response problems and compounded the terror, they made one big mistake over and over and over and over again. Four times AP reported a car bomb having gone off outside the State Department that morning---at 10:35am, at 10:42am, at 11:03am, and again at 11:11am, a span of 36 minutes, before they let the matter drop without a retraction.
The first three reports were news banners, and contain only this item. This means no mitigation or circumstance would force them to make the report. The third report was fleshed out with an attribution, if you can call this level of anonymity, imprecision and illiteracy fleshed out:
"Car bombing outside of State Department-- The State Department was evacuated Tuesday due to a possible explosion or fire amid a rash of explosions in New York and Washington.
"A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the incident appeared connected with the two plane crashes at the World Trade Center, an explosion at the Pentagon and the evacuation of the White House.
"'Something has happened at the State Department,' the source said. "We don't know what yet. We hear it might have been a plane.""
I can't possibly do the quote justice. To get the full effect, listen to the portentous tones of Mike "Buck" Buchanan, the CBS News9 co-anchor bad boy, as he histrionically intones
something has happened...we hear it might have been a plane! When I first heard it I thought it had to be a joke but it's not. Fast forward to (30:32)
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