{"id":16193,"date":"2008-07-14T13:33:56","date_gmt":"2008-07-14T17:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16193.html"},"modified":"2008-07-14T13:33:56","modified_gmt":"2008-07-14T17:33:56","slug":"the-aps-shift-isnt-sloppy-its-deliberate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-aps-shift-isnt-sloppy-its-deliberate\/","title":{"rendered":"The AP’s shift isn’t sloppy, it’s deliberate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regular readers know that I’ve been highlighting<\/a> some of the unusually bad coverage of the presidential campaign from the Associated Press. It’s been striking, in part because it’s unexpected — the AP has not exactly earned a reputation of being the Fox News of wire services. For the AP to do so many poor reports in such a short time made it seem as if the outlet had undergone some kind of deliberate shift.<\/p>\n

As it happens, it has<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ron Fournier says he regards Sandy Johnson, his predecessor as head of The Associated Press’s Washington bureau, as “a mentor.” <\/p>\n

Johnson, though, regards Fournier, who replaced her in a hard-feelings shake-up in May, as a threat to one of the most influential institutions in American journalism. <\/p>\n

“I loved the Washington bureau,” said Johnson, who left the AP after losing the prestigious position. “I just hope he doesn’t destroy it.” <\/p>\n

There’s more to her vinegary remark than just the aftertaste of a sour parting. Fournier is a main engine in a high-stakes experiment at the 162-year old wire to move from its signature neutral and detached tone to an aggressive, plain-spoken style of writing that Fournier often describes as “cutting through the clutter.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At first blush, this sounds like an exciting and encouraging development. What does “cutting through the clutter” mean? According to Fournier’s new approach, it includes more first-person writing, emotive language, and abandoning the forced, false neutrality (he said, she said) that has dominated AP reporting for years. As Michael Calderone explained, AP reporters are now “encouraged to throw away the weasel words and call it like they see it when they think public officials have revealed themselves as phonies or flip-floppers.” Fournier calls the trend “accountability journalism” and “liberating…the truth.”<\/p>\n

In principle, I couldn’t be more pleased. I’ve long believed one of the reasons more news consumers turn to blogs is that traditional news outlets refuse to “cut through the clutter.” Dems said A, Republicans said B. Who’s right? That’s not the media’s job.<\/p>\n

If the AP wants to change the game, I’d be thrilled. But I’ve seen the results of Fournier’s work lately, and while the idea may have merit, there’s a problem in the execution.
\n
\nI suppose the first time I noticed this “new” AP came in March, when Fournier wrote an item<\/a> — whether it was a news article or an opinion piece was unclear — that said Barack Obama is “bordering on arrogance,” “a bit too cocky,” and that the senator and his wife “ooze a sense of entitlement.” To substantiate the criticism, Fournier pointed to … not a whole lot<\/a>. It was basically the Republicans’ “uppity” talking point in the form of an AP article.<\/p>\n

But the AP’s coverage has deteriorated since — and it goes beyond just the AP giving John McCain donuts and McCain giving the AP barbecue. There was the slam-job on Obama that read like an RNC oppo dump, followed by a scathing, 900-word reprimand<\/a> of Obama’s decision to bypass the public financing system in the general election, filled with errors of fact and judgment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Obama unveiled his faith-based plan, the AP got the story backwards<\/a>. When Obama talked about his Iraq policy on July 3, the AP said he’d “opened the door<\/a>” to reversing course, even though he hadn’t<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The AP’s David Espo wrote a hagiographic, 1,200-word piece<\/a>, praising McCain’s “singular brand of combative bipartisanship,” which was utterly ridiculous<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The AP pushed the objectivity envelope a little further with a mind-numbing, 1,100-word piece on Obama<\/a> “being shadowed by giant flip-flops.”<\/p>\n

The AP flubbed the story<\/a> on McCain joking about killing Iranians, and then flubbed the story about McCain’s promise<\/a> to eliminate the deficit. It’s part of a very discouraging trend<\/a> for the AP that’s been ongoing for a while now.<\/p>\n

At this point, the AP isn’t “cutting through the clutter”; it’s adding to it. This isn’t “accountability journalism”; it’s weak journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regular readers know that I’ve been highlighting some of the unusually bad coverage of the presidential campaign from the Associated Press. It’s been striking, in part because it’s unexpected — the AP has not exactly earned a reputation of being the Fox News of wire services. For the AP to do so many poor reports […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}