The Associated Press (AP) has recently published several articles during the period Dec.21 to Jan.3 that contained significant inaccuracies.
Despite the AP’s claim of taking stringent measures to guarantee accuracy in its coverage, multiple notable mistakes have surfaced since December across various subjects in history and current events. While the outlet has updated some of the errors, it did not issue any corrections for them, although it commits to doing so in such circumstances. (RELATED: Corporate Media Pushes Misleading Narrative About Biden Impeachment Inquiry Hearing)
The AP is a newswire service that has its articles republished in over 400 global publications, garnering 156.9 million page views per month in 2022, according to its website. It also had 36.3 million users and 101.3 million visits per month.
“Our efforts have been rewarded with trust: More than half the world’s population sees AP news content on any given day,” the AP’s news values and principles state. “We abhor inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortions.”
NEW: AP reported that Pope Francis said Jesus was born during a census taken by King David during his Christmas Eve homily. This is wrong. Read more here @Check_Your_Fact: https://t.co/ulaMKHugYi
— Elias Atienza (@AtienzaElias) December 28, 2023
For instance, the AP incorrectly recounted the biblical Christmas story and Pope Francis’ Christmas Eve homily on Dec. 24 in an article detailing how Jesus was born during a census to “reinforce King David’s power.” Yet David was alive for 14 generations before Jesus’ birth under the reign of King Herod.
Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus was the one who issued a decree demanding everyone residing in Roman territory return to their city of birth for a census, not King David, according to the Bible.
“Recalling that Jesus was born during a census meant to reinforce King David’s power, Francis warned against ‘the quest for worldly power and might, fame and glory, which measures everything in terms of success, results, numbers and figures, a world obsessed with achievement,’” the piece titled, “Pope says ‘our hearts are in Bethlehem’ as he presides over the Christmas Eve mass in St. Peters,” originally stated before the AP updated it to remove mention of King David on Dec. 29. The outlet neglected to add an editor’s note in the piece announcing a correction.
The AP also reported that Israel’s military endeavors against Hamas in Gaza are “seen as among the most destructive in history, experts say” in December before updating it to “recent history.” The report states Israel’s attacks have been more “destructive” than Allied attacks against Germany during World War II and the U.S. attacks against ISIS in Iraq, according to experts. The outlet opted not to issue an editor’s note for this article as well.
Over 20,000 Palestinians have died in the Israel-Hamas conflict thus far, according to the AP. Meanwhile, approximately 6 million Jews died during World War II, according to the National World War II Museum.
Conservative activist Chris Rufo accused Harvard President Claudine Gay of plagiarizing multiple sections of her thesis in December. When she resigned on Tuesday, he posted, “SCALPED.”
In an article about Gay’s resignation, the AP referred to Rufo’s comments and characterized the Native American practice of scalping as a “gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who sought to eradicate Native Americans.” It updated this later the same day to add, “and also used by some tribes against their enemies,” again without posting an editor’s note.
Additionally, the outlet changed its headline from “Harvard president’s resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism” to “Plagiarism charges downed Harvard’s president. A conservative attack helped to fan the outrage.”
The AP did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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