AP, Al-Pazeera, Al-Jazeera. What's The Difference?

Negligible.

Bilal Hussein a stringer who snaps shots for the AP is in US custody and US Forces report he was caught in the company of high level terrorist types.

Michelle Malkin displays some of the infamous photos of Bilal's and asks:

You tell me: What exactly is the journalistic value of having Hussein hanging out in the desert with civilian-slaughtering terrorists and snapping Theater of Jihad glamour shots for them? Why doesn't the American media leave that job to as Sahab, al Qaeda's media production unit, and its analogues?

Urging news organizations to think twice about being used as tools in the terrorists' propaganda war isn't "thuggery." It's responsible journalism and responsible citizenry. Oops, did I say a bad word?

Source: AP vs. the "so-called blogosphere" Michelle Malkin

Dr. Rusty Shackleford of the Jawa Report takes up this story as well.

Pakis Know Where Bin Laden Is, Bush May Send in Troops »
September 20, 2006
Journalistic ethics be damned if those ethics include balancing coverage by hiring stringers with known ties to people killing American soldiers. If it is ethical to hire an enemy propagandist, then I'm just not sure what ethics really mean.

Call it ethics if you want. I call it treason.

Source: When Ethics Trump Patriotism and Morality: Ethicsgate - The Jawa Report
This story is one that has been festering and periodically rupturing from time to time. Bilal Hussein has been in this position before and I doubt anything serious will be done about him by the US. Of course, Al-Pazeera will stand behind the skirts of press freedom and lash out at those who believe they should stand with liberal civilization.

We may hate the pretense of neutrality by practitioners of journalism but the days of pretend are coming to an end. Journalists will soon have to openly choose a side. I much prefer that than the pretense of impartial journalism.