is this, like, irony, or more in-house cognitive dissonance?

FROM THE SEATTLE TIMES (Au­gust 6, 2013, page A4): “Tal­iban se­cretly talking to Kabul gov­ern­ment.” That’s present tense “talking,” meaning it’s sup­pos­edly hap­pening now! Is this, like, an ex­ample of some form of As­so­ci­ated Press, in-house irony? I mean, if it’s in every news­paper in the world that has an AP line, then it ain’t all that “se­cret,” is it?

I know! It’s not irony at all—because there is no media in Afghanistan, this IS a se­cret to the Afghanis, kept from them.

Or, per­haps, it’s re­ally AP’s idea of more in-house cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance …

Postscript

The ac­tual AP piece dated Au­gust 5, 2013, reads: “The Tal­iban have held se­cret talks with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Afghan Pres­i­dent Hamid Karzai to try to jump­start a peace process that stum­bled and stalled at the starting gate, ac­cording to Afghan of­fi­cials and a se­nior Tal­iban rep­re­sen­ta­tive.  

The dis­cus­sions with mem­bers of the Afghan High Peace Council have so far been un­of­fi­cial and pre­lim­i­nary, seen as an at­tempt to agree on con­di­tions for formal talks. But they do sug­gest an in­terest on both sides in pro­ceeding, or at least toying, with a peace process that has been mired in con­tro­versy since the of­fi­cial opening of a Tal­iban po­lit­ical of­fice in June in the Gulf na­tion of Qatar. ”