After Being Duped, AP Includes Disclaimer in 2nd Beheading Story

By: Joe Strupp After falling victim to a beheading hoax on Saturday -- along with several other news organizations -- the Associated Press on Monday followed with another report of a decapitation, this time with a prominent disclaimer that was missing from the previous story.

The Monday story, posted by AP, reported on the beheading of an unidentified Bulgarian man, whose murder was videotaped and aired on the Internet. The article included a clear disclaimer in the second paragraph, stating "it was not clear when the video was made, and its authenticity could not immediately be verified."

AP Managing Editor Tom Kent said the hoax did not prompt any disciplinary action or change in policy for future stories, stressing that the ongoing policy is to use such disclaimers whenever facts cannot be verified. "We have been talking to the editors involved and will heed to the policy in the future," he said.

On Saturday morning, AP reported that a San Francisco man, Benjamin Vanderford, had been beheaded in Iraq. Initially, that story -- based on a video that had appeared on the Web site, Islamic-minibar.com -- did not carry a disclaimer. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a disclaimer indicating the video could not be verified did not appear in the story until the fifth version ran about 90 minutes after the story broke.

"Things were moving fast, but we should have included some other language that would have made clear it was still a preliminary report," Kent said. "Our policy is normally to say that."

Several hours after the initial reports, it was revealed that the beheading video was a fake and had been created by Vanderford and two friends several months ago. Kent pointed out that the AP broke the story of the hoax, adding that an AP reporter tracked down Vanderford in his apartment Saturday morning and woke him up to confirm it.

"We were the ones to uncover it and make sure everyone knew about it as fast as we could," Kent said. "We don't just let stories sit, we pursue them as hard as we can and come up with a true picture."

Just over two months ago, AP had to retract a report that a meteorite might have hit the earth near Olympia, Wash., after using as a source someone who called into a radio talk show claiming to be a University of Washington professor. The source was later revealed to have been a fake.