Associated Press Omissions

T he Associated Press (AP), according to its website, is the world’s oldest and largest news organization. It is the behemoth of news reporting, providing what its editors determine is the news to a billion people each day. Through its feeds to thousands of newspapers, radio, and television stations, AP is a major determinant in what Americans read, hear, and see—and what they don’t.

What they don’t is profoundly important. I investigated one such omission when I was in the Palestinian Territories last year working on a documentary.  

On October 17, 2004 Israeli military forces invaded Balata, a dense, poverty-stricken community deep in Palestine’s West Bank (Israel frequently invades this area and others). According to witnesses, the vehicles stayed for about 20 minutes as the military asserted its power over the Palestinian population. Witnesses state that there was no Palestinian resistance—no “clash,” no “crossfire,” no stone throwing. At one point, after most of the vehicles had driven away, an Israeli soldier stuck his gun out of his armored vehicle, aimed at a young boy nearby, and pulled the trigger. 

We went to the hospital and interviewed the boy, Ahmad, his doctors, family, and others. He said he was afraid of Israeli soldiers and showed us where he had been shot previously. There was a second boy in the hospital, this one with a shattered femur. A third boy was in critical condition with a bullet hole in his lung. A fourth, not a patient, was visiting a friend. He showed us a scarred lip and missing teeth from when Israeli soldiers had shot him in the mouth. 

We discovered that an AP cameraperson had filmed the entire incident. He had then followed what apparently is the usual routine—he sent his video to the AP control bureau in Israel. Did AP place the video in safe-keeping, available for an investigation of this crime? According to the camera- person, the AP erased it. 

We traveled to AP’s control bureau. With our own camera out and running, we asked bureau chief Steve Gutkin about this incident. Did the bureau have the video and had they indeed erased it. If so, why? Gutkin, visibly flustered, told us that AP did not allow its journalists to give interviews. He told us that all questions must go to Corporate Communications in New York. He explained that they were on deadline and couldn’t talk. I said I understood deadline pressures and sat down to wait until they were done. When Gutkin called Israeli police to arrest us, we left. 

Later, I phoned Corporate Communications and reached Jack Stokes, AP’s public relations spokesperson and director of media relations. I had conversed with Stokes before. Over the past several years I had noticed disturbing flaws in AP’s coverage of Israel- Palestine—newsworthy stories not being covered, reports sent to international newspapers, but not to U.S. ones, stories omitting or misreporting significant facts, critical sentences being removed from updated reports. I would phone AP with the appropriate correction or news alert. One time this resulted in a flawed news story being slightly corrected in updates. In a few cases stories were covered that had been neglected. In many cases, however, I was told that I needed to speak to Corporate Communications. 

I would phone Corporate Communications, leave a message, and wait for a response. Most often, none came. Several times, however, I was able to have long conversations with Stokes. None of these conversations ever ended with AP taking any action. Some typical responses were: 

• The omitted story was “not newsworthy” 
• The story deemed by AP editors to be newsworthy to the rest of the world—e.g. Israel’s brutal imprisonment of over 300 Palestinian youths—was not newsworthy in the U.S. 
• Burying a report of Israeli forces shooting a four-year-old Palestinian girl in the mouth was justified 
• Misreporting an incident in which an Israeli officer riddled a 13-year-old girl at close range with bullets was unimportant 

So when I phoned Corporate Communication about the erased footage, I no longer expected that AP would take any corrective action, but I did expect to receive some information. I gave Stokes the details about this incident and asked him the same questions I had asked Gutkin. He said he would look into this and get back to me. 

After several days he had not gotten back to me, so I phoned him. He said that he had looked into this incident and that AP had determined that this was “an internal matter” and that they would give no response. While I should have known better, I was again astounded. AP was blatantly violating fundamental journalistic norms of ethical behavior and clearly felt it had the power to get away with it. According to the ASJ’s Code of Ethics: “Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.  Journalists should: 

• Clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct 
• Encourage the public to voice grievances against the media 
• Admit mistakes and correct them promptly 
• Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media 
• Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others” 

Later, on deadline for a book with a chapter about media coverage of Israel-Palestine, I again tried to confirm some of my facts with AP. It happened to be the media’s “Sunshine Week” and as part of the Sunshine campaign, AP’s CEO and President Tom Curley was traveling the country giving speeches on the necessity of transparency and accountability (for government) and emphasizing “the openness that effective democracy requires.” 

“The trend toward secrecy,” AP’s president had been pointing out, “is the greatest threat to democracy.” 

I emailed my questions to AP, talked to Stokes by phone, and again was told he would get back to me. Again, I had to get back to him. In a surreal exchange, he conveyed AP’s reply: “The official response is we decline to respond.” As I asked question after question, many as simple as a confirmation of the number of bureaus AP has in Israel-Palestine, the response was silence or a repetition of: “The official response is we decline to respond.” 

The next day I tried phoning Curley directly. I was unable to reach him since he was still on the road giving his Sunshine Week speeches (“Secrecy,” Curley says, “is for losers”), but I left a message for him with an assistant. She said someone would respond. I am still waiting. 

It is clearly time to go to AP’s superiors. The fact is, AP is a cooperative. It is not owned by Corporate Communications or by its CEO or even by its board of directors. It is owned by the thousands of newspapers and broadcast stations around the United States that use AP reports. These newspapers, radio and television stations are the true directors of AP and bear responsibility for its coverage. 

In the end, it appears, the only way that Americans will receive full, unbiased reporting from AP on Israel-Palestine will be when these member-owners demand such coverage from their employees in the Middle East and in New York. In the final analysis, therefore, it is up to us—members of the public—to step in. Everyone who believes that Americans have the right and the need to receive full, undistorted information on all issue must take action. We must require our news media to fulfill their profoundly important obligation and we must ourselves distribute the critical information these media are leaving out. If we don’t take action, no one else will.