AP- Associated Press? No, Absolutely Preposterous

Today's example of bad journalism.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - A small black object that was found attached to the bottom of a woman's Jeep and prompted an evacuation of a three-square block area on Friday wasn't a bomb after all. It was a tracking device planted by the woman's husband.

A temporary shelter was set up at the Queen of Peace Church to house the 45 people who had been evacuated, while authorities investigated for more than two hours.

After learning the woman and her husband were going through a divorce, detectives learned that the woman's husband had hired a private investigator. He admitted attaching the tracking device to the woman's Jeep, Maynard said.

Bomb technicians used a robot to confirm the box was indeed a Global Positioning System device, Alachua County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Stephen Maynard said.

The names of the woman and her husband were not released.

Then compare it with this Gainesville Sun article.

The Alachua County Sheriff's Office received a call at about 9 p.m. about the suspicious device from Dousa Fanous, 35, of 10412 SW 23rd Ave., in the Cambridge Forest subdivision, said spokesman Sgt. Steve Maynard.

Fanous said she first noticed the device when she was picking up her children, ages 7 and 11, from The Family Visitation Center at NW 13th Street and NW 39th Avenue, Maynard said. Fanous handled the device, put it back on her SUV, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, drove home with her children, and then called her attorney, who told her to call police, Maynard said.

The Sheriff's Office dispatched its bomb squad to the scene and evacuated about 30 homes within a three-block radius of Queen of Peace Catholic Church, 10900 SW 24th Ave., Maynard said.

The woman told deputies she was going through a "messy divorce," so deputies talked to her husband, Maher Fanous, 47. He told deputies to call Bob Goldberg of Palm Beach County, a private investigator he had hired, Maynard said. Goldberg told deputies he attached a GPS device to car, co-owned by couple, to track her whereabouts, Maynard said.

If I could find this, why couldn't the AP reporter? The story is filed out of Gainesville, so the reporter should have seen the local paper. Actually I saw the Gainesville Sun story almost 24 hours ago. I didn't blog about it, because I was saving it a 24-hour Knucklehead marathon I am planning for November 24.

So where did this AP reporter file the story, Dunkin Donuts? I have rarely seen a more lazy piece of journalism in my 21 months of blogging.

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