News with Views from the Associated Press
I write this column as a service to the AP. Someone has to tell this outfit their claim of “no political agenda” is being violated. Don’t get me wrong; I love the sentiment. America could use a trusted news source that provides factual accounts of current events.
That’s what AP claims to do, but it often falls short.
In a story about a school shooting in Canada, the AP provided the shooter’s name, age, and issues with mental health. But something felt wrong. I searched and found a story on “LGBTQ Nation” that provided full details on the shooter – an 18-year-old trans woman. That fact is critical given that at least three other recent shootings have connections to the transgender movement.
As Joe Friday would say, just the facts, ma’am.” Today he might add: And ALL the facts.
AUDIO: Random Samplings of a Logical Mind (to come)
The Associated Press promotes itself as unbiased. Then, why isn’t it?
The AP website has a banner that reads:
News without an agenda.
AP is a not-for-profit organization with no corporate parent, no shareholders, and no government influence. Our mission is journalism, not profit margins. Your donation supports independent reporting that serves the public interest, not corporate shareholders.
Actually, that’s what the AP should be, always used to be. I grew up in an age when the AP battled with United Press International (UPI) for wire service supremacy. I worked at several radio stations that had one or the other, and at larger stations that had both. I trusted them both. They ran well-written, stodgy stories containing facts. At big stations like WFAA and KRLD in Dallas, I usually rewrote the wire copy to make it more interesting. But I used their facts without question.
Here’s basic data about the AP from Wikipedia that has details on what the service actually is:
The Associated Press is an American not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are distributed to its members, major U.S. daily newspapers and radio and television broadcasters… The AP distributes its widely used AP Stylebook, its AP polls tracking NCAA sports, and its election polls and results during U.S. elections.
The AP Stylebook is in such undisputed use that when it calls for capitalizing the word black, referring to race, most media pretty much did as told – even though there was a political element involved; “black” became “Black” and that was that.
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So, yes, the AP still has influence even though teletype machines are no longer click-clacking 24-hours a day pulling pulp from long boxes of fan-fold paper. Today, the AP’s output is available as a website that anyone can read. And politics have crept in.
There are several subjects the AP has specific viewpoints on.
The AP doesn’t like Trump very much; it is in the tank for climate change; and it is sympathetic to the LGBTQ agenda. On that last item, here’s a case in point: The AP’s story on that tragic school shooting in Canada left out a key point. The headline read:
Suspect in Canada shooting is identified as an 18-year-old with history of police visits to her home
There is no factual error in that headline. But check out a similar headline from a website that caters to the gay community, and is called LGTBQ Nation:
Suspect in Canada mass shooing identified as 18-year-old trans woman. Here’s what we know.
Kudos to LGBTQ Nation for reporting the story factually and far more completely than did the AP. You’d think it would have been the other way around. But nowhere in the AP online story (as of this post) was the trans issue even noted.
Why is that important?
In a piece in the New York Post, Bethany Mandel wrote about this issue under the headline:
The media needs to stop gaslighting us about the reality of trans mass shooters
Mandel points out that elite media and officials go to great lengths not to see any connection between the trans movement and recent mass shootings. She’s right. It makes you wonder if the AP, at the time of its story didn’t know that the shooter was trans, even though the name of the shooter indicated a male. If they didn’t know, did they correct the story later, or did this story carry with it a political agenda?
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Mandel notes three other recent shootings with trans connections:
One occurred in Nashville, where a trans-identified shooter murdered six people at a Christian school. Another took place in Minneapolis where a person with documented gender-identity issues targeted a church. A third was Tyler Robinson, the accused murderer of Charlie Kirk, who had a transitioning boyfriend. The Canada shooting makes four in rapid succession, and that’s worthy of a mention whether the AP likes it or not.
Meanwhile, on the climate change front…
On February 12, the AP carried a story about Trump’s EPA revoking the science behind action by the U.S. government to fight climate change:
Trump EPA revokes scientific finding that underpinned US fight against climate change
The first few graphs of the story are factual, though the tone suggests that the writers were dismayed at what had happened. The bulk of the rest of the story centered on how reckless this Trump EPA action was, quoting environmental groups and experts that disagree with it. Dr. Lisa Patel, a pediatrician and executive director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health breathlessly warned that Trump’s action…
“…prioritizes the profits of big oil and gas companies and polluters over clean air and water [and children’s health]. As a result of this repeal, I’m going to see more sick kids come into the Emergency Department having asthma attacks and more babies born prematurely. My colleagues will see more heart attacks and cancer in their patients.”
The AP ran this rant without question. This will not likely be true or in any way provable, but she claims it and the AP ran it. To be fair, there was some support for the action quoted in the article. That article wasn’t enough. The AP in its zeal also ran a long “FACT FOCUS” with the headline:
False claims the Trump Administration made about climate change and energy
AP’s top climate change alarmist Seth Borenstein was a contributor to this article, which tells you what you need to know. Read it, and see if you think there’s a modicum of bias. The other side of the AP screed came not from AP but from the New York Post. Miranda Devine’s article is entitled:
Trump debunking Al Gore’s climate fears has made the world a better place
Devine writes that it’s about time Al Gore’s lies that never came true were exposed:
Twenty years after Al Gore’s apocalyptic movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Trump administration has put the final nail in the coffin of the lie that scared a generation into believing the planet was about to explode in flames if they kept using fossil fuels.
If nothing else, Devine shows that there is another side to the climate change debate – one that the Associated Press would just as soon not cover. She notes that we keep passing all the doomsday deadlines set by alarmists from Gore to Greta Thunberg and the Earth keeps right on spinning.
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This is what’s missing from the AP’s coverage – the other side of this debate, which offers as proof of the climate change hoax that the Earth is fine, far after most of Gore’s deadlines.
Wouldn’t it be nice the AP really did give us news without a political agenda?
It would. But they don’t. And yes, I know that ABC-NBC-CBS-CNN-MSNOW-NYT-WAPO isn’t any better. But the AP still shows up in thousands of daily newscasts and newspapers, presented as the holy truth. The AP has a long reputation for truth and facts, and even tells us so on its website. But times have changed and so has the AP, where the agenda is there, it’s obvious, and it’s almost always a leftist slant.
Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based author, broadcaster, and songwriter. Follow his podcast at https://www.PlanetLogic.us. Check out his author’s page at https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoolley.
Order books direct from Lynn at https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site.
Email Lynn at lwoolley9189@gmail.com.
There is no political agenda in this book except for where there is. Order now on Amazon and enjoy!
