AP News is an international non-profit media organization based in New York City. founded in 18 46, it is an independent, cooperative association. It has memberships in over 90 countries. AP news releases, sent to its worldwide members and clients, are generally produced in English, Spanish or Arabic. The primary language of AP News is English. In case of the AP News Service in the United States, one of the mission statements is “AP News Service is dedicated to providing accurate and up-to-date news information to our members and readers.”
You may have noticed that most major print and broadcast media have strong international news bureaus. They all seem to be geared toward a U.S.-based audience. This may be part of the reason that most people do not pay attention to AP News, as they feel they are more likely to get a hard news bias from them. But, here’s the interesting part.
AP News does not publish anything without first obtaining the permission of the reporter. The reporter works for the AP and cannot be the bearer of false news. He must make sure to use his personal contacts, if any, among the sources he uses for the stories he writes. And he needs to make sure that the material he uses is completely true. If he fails to follow this simple policy, then he can find himself in serious trouble, not only with the AP but with the U.S. public as well.
Recently, I noticed that AP News did not tweet about the Osama bin Laden operation, but instead they tweeted this: “AP:” The hunt for bin Laden continues. Several US citizens are being threatened with death.” They then followed this up by saying that there was no confirmation on whether bin Laden was still alive. The obvious question here is how could they say there was no confirmation when they had their reporter at the scene? You see, when you write something like that, it is obvious to anyone that you have no confidence in your reporting. Now, the reason this got posted is that AP News has some sway over the media outlet that posted it; but the bias is obvious and problematic.
Let’s look at what could be behind this. AP News reporters feel that they can fairly judge the work of a White House aide; but what if that aide turns out to be a mole or a hacker? Would AP publish anything that was unfavorable to the Trump team even if it was true? It seems they would have every right to. So, now you know why the AP failed to tweet about this story.
This whole episode has me wondering if the AP News staffers are working for the same folks that financed the now bankrupt Daily Beast. If so, I wonder what they are up to; and who else might be up to no good? Please consider all this.