AP Corrects Story About Valerie Plame, Says Media Matters for America

WASHINGTON, July 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In an Associated Press article originally issued the morning of July 15, 2005, a statement by former ambassador Joe Wilson was falsely taken to mean that his wife was not an undercover agent at the CIA at the time of Robert D. Novak's column in July 2003. During the early afternoon of July 15, 2005, the Associated Press issued a corrected version of the article noting Wilson's clarification that "his wife lost her ability to be a covert agent because of the leak, not that she had stopped working for the CIA beforehand."

Since Plame's covert status is one of the central questions in the entire matter, all media outlets that carried the initial incorrect Associated Press article should run an immediate and prominent correction, in addition to using the corrected version of this Associated Press article in any future reporting or printing.

AP falsely reported Wilson "acknowledged his wife was no longer in an undercover job" when her identity was first publicly leaked http://mediamatters.org/items/200507150003

In a July 15 article reporting new details in the ongoing criminal investigation into the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity, the Associated Press distorted a remark by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV to falsely report that Wilson "acknowledged his wife (Plame) was no longer in an undercover job at the time Novak's column first identified her." In fact, Wilson merely emphasized that his wife's cover was blown at the moment when columnist Robert D. Novak revealed her identity in a July 2003 column.