AP SUCCUMBS TO CONQUEST’S SECOND* LAW OF POLITICS: The decline and fall of the Associated Press.
One of the sad features of modern media (and there are many) is that these symptoms of decline have affected the Associated Press. Once considered the epitome of neutrality and fairness, the AP has become a woke organization. It’s hardly the Gender Studies Department at Oberlin, but all too often it spins stories and headlines instead of reporting them straight. That would be troubling at any time, but it is particularly troubling now that financially-strapped newspapers rely so heavily on cut-and-paste reports from outside sources, primarily the AP.
The latest example of AP’s troubled role involves its offices in the Gaza Strip, a territory controlled by Hamas. For some 15 years, the AP has operated out of an 11-story building in Gaza City, the al-Jalaa Tower, where al Jazeera also has offices. According to Israeli military intelligence, journalists weren’t the only ones in that tower. Hamas terrorists also had offices there and were using them to plan terror attacks on Jewish civilians. So, in the midst of Israel’s wider military campaign against Hamas assets, the Israeli Defense Forces told everyone to evacuate the building, which was then destroyed by aerial bombardment. No one was injured.
The Associated Press went berserk, claiming there were no Hamas offices in the building and that this was not only an Israeli assault on the AP, it was an attack on all journalism. The AP’s CEO, Gary Pruitt, demanded a full investigation and began rounding up support from other news organizations and politicians like UN secretary-general António Guterres, who was ‘deeply disturbed’ by the airstrike.
An investigation won’t turn out the way Mr Pruitt wants, not if it is truly unbiased. There is mounting public evidence, independent of Israeli intelligence, that Hamas was operating out of the building and that other people in the building knew it.
Tommy Vietor, a former spokesman for President Obama, has tweeted that he talked to people who worked in the building and who knew, first-hand, that Hamas worked there. He doesn’t find that surprising since, as he notes, Hamas ‘purposefully co-locate operations with civilians’. Vietor’s comments are especially important because he is not trying to justify the bombing, only to clarify the facts. In fact, he specifically stated that Israel ‘shouldn’t hit that building’, even though Hamas had offices there.
As the evidence mounts, the AP’s stance appears increasingly flimsy. Not that it has stopped their complaints or their protestation that Hamas never had offices in their building. That stance is beginning to resemble Sgt. Schultz’s feigned ignorance in Hogan’s Heroes: ‘I see nothing. I hear nothing. I know nothing.’ That’s not a good place for a news organization to be. In fact, it’s the opposite of what we mean by a news organization.
Related: Former AP Reporter Said AP ‘Wouldn’t Report’ on Hamas Launching Attacks Outside Gaza Office. “The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby — and the AP wouldn’t report it, not even in AP articles about Israeli claims that Hamas was launching rockets from residential areas. (This happened.) Hamas fighters would burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau and threaten the staff — and the AP wouldn’t report it. (This also happened.) Cameramen waiting outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City would film the arrival of civilian casualties and then, at a signal from an official, turn off their cameras when wounded and dead fighters came in, helping Hamas maintain the illusion that only civilians were dying. (This too happened; the information comes from multiple sources with firsthand knowledge of these incidents.)”
* “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”