The AP's Dangerous Language Dictatorship (Updated)

Bending words to justify terrorism

Racket News’ Matt Taibbi tells us Donald Trump is trolling the Associated Press by, according to the news organization itself, “telling them what words to use.”. Mr. Taibbi points out the AP’s hypocrisy since its Stylebook has been dictating American English usage for practically all our media for decades. (I vastly prefer Strunk & White, but what do I know?)

The dispute of the moment centers around the AP’s refusal to adopt the president’s executive order to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. I have no dog in that particular hunt. They could call that body of water the Gulf of Swordfish for all I care (reference to the great Marx Brothers film “Horsefeathers” deliberate).

Nevertheless, the Biden Administration made similar executive order changes galore, many of them considerably more fraught, to which the AP evinced not one objection and adhered to like well-trained circus animals.

They also did not object to years of acts of “woke” destruction as disgusting (and terroristic) as “militants”—the term they used— pulling down the statue of Theodore Roosevelt in front of New York’s Museum of Natural History when Roosevelt was the man responsible for our national parks. BLM were “militants” to them as well, not terrorists, as they attempted to burn down Minneapolis for their political purposes (also personal gain). The Associated Press linguistically normalized almost every extremist action of recent years, foreign and domestic.

But current rhetorical decisions of the AP are far worse with consequences that enable evil in its most extreme forms.

Most disturbing is their inability to use the word “terrorism” to apply to, well, real terrorists. They claim they rely exclusively on Merriam-Webster for their definitions but there is reason to be skeptical. MW defines terrorism as “the unlawful use or threat of violence especially against the state or the public as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion.”

Wouldn’t that perfectly define Hamas that breaks into a neighboring country, shoots as many random civilians as possible, blows up their cars, destroys their buildings, abducts their citizens, including children and tiny babies, killing many, torturing or raping others, male and female, or starving them to death, in hidden tunnels for now over 500 days. How much “attack” and “coercion” do you need? And it hasn’t stopped.

But no, Hamas are not terrorists. In AP parlance they are “militants.” But because it is the Associated Press, this appellation spreads, surprisingly often even to conservative media. AP journalism, according to its website, is read by 4 billion people a day globally.

So I asked Grok AI about why the AP still persists in calling Hamas “militants” and refuses to employ the word “terrorists”. Said Grok:

“The Associated Press (AP) does not typically use the word ‘terrorist’ to describe Hamas in its reporting. Instead, AP tends to use terms like ‘militant group’ or ‘militants’ when referring to Hamas. This approach is part of AP's editorial policy to avoid using the term ‘terrorist’ without attribution, as the word is considered highly politicized and emotive. They will mention that certain governments or organizations have designated Hamas as a terrorist group, but they do not label Hamas as such directly in their reporting.”

Is there such a thing then as a terrorist in AP’s lexicon? Evidently not. (I asked Grok a similar question about ISIS and got back a nearly identical response. No, they are “militants” in the AP’s words, beheadings notwithstanding.)

Grok, like most AI, did not really delve into the “why,” but it should be obvious.

The AP is to a great extent a propaganda operation masquerading as a news agency.

As for Merriam-Webster’s definition of “militant” (as noted, AP’s choice), I got this from Google’s AI (we’re equal-opportunity):

“According to Merriam-Webster, militant means to be aggressively active or engaged in combat, especially in support of a cause. For example, you might describe someone as a militant conservationist or a militant protester.”

MW gives these as their three examples of “militant” in a sentence:

• "Militant conservationists"

• "Militant protesters rallied against the new law"

• "Militants within the movement insisted that there could be no compromise on the issue"

None of these sound much like Hamas. The third—no compromise— sounds like someone running for Mayor of Philadelphia before the actual election, after which compromise is inevitable.

Notably missing from the definition are any mentions of murder,, shootings, kidnapings, rapes, knifings, forced starvation, Kornet missiles, suicide drones, machine guns, Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, IEDs, etc.—all SOP for Hamas.

By using “militant”the AP softens Hamas and—consciously or unconsciously—contributes to the vicious, psycopathic organization’s survival that now weighs in the balance. The AP, through this bowdlerization of terrorism, is placing lives at risk—Israeli, obviously, but also the Gazans themselves by excusing and ignoring the violent indoctrination Gazans have undergone since early childhood. This will lead to disastrous lives for many of them, assuming they survive. But the AP doesn’t to really think through the implications of their words. From Memri.org:

“Hamas operates a vast and diversified apparatus to indoctrinate children from a very young age to love jihad and devote their lives to fighting the Jews, and to seek martyrdom as the ultimate glory that is highly rewarded in Paradise. This indoctrination is complemented and amplified by parents, especially mothers, who express joy over their children's martyrdom and willingness to sacrifice all their children to the cause[1].”

Just to underscore everything, Kfir Bibas was ninth months old when he was kidnaped by Hamas from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023. As we have recently learned, he is now dead.

Who does things like that, ladies and gentlemen of the Associated Press, a militant or a terrorist?

Words count.

UPDATE: I wrote the above on the night of February. 19. I woke up the morning of February 20 to see reports and photos of the insanely gleeful dancing and singing handovers of the corpses of the Bibas family and Oded Lipchitz who was 83 at the time of his abduction. This was a barbarian display by Hamas almost beyond human comprehension. The AP, in their coverage, did not mention this, making what I wrote above an understatement. Via ZeroHedge: I read the following statement from Israel’s diaspora minster Amichai Chikli:

"One of the West’s greatest failures is its refusal to acknowledge the existence of pure evil. We have raised generations to believe that monsters exist only in fairy tales, that there is no true right or wrong, and that all cultures are equal," the Likud minister wrote on X.

"And then comes this accursed day, a day of horror and shame, when an elderly man, a mother, and her two children: Oded Lipschitz, Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas — who were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists, paraded like trophies before a cheering, flag-waving crowd in Gaza. Pure evil. And against such evil, there can be no excuses, rationalizations, or compromises."

* * *

Reports of photographers affiliated with the AP, Reuters, CNN and the NY Times having extraordinary access at the start of the Oct 7 may have been exaggerated but have not been fully investigated. The bias of those organizations is obvious.

The AP may be the worst because of its global reach and because it pretends to even-handedness, the NY Times seeming to have finally dropped the mask. (Reuters is pretty bad too.)

Nevertheless, they accuses President Trump of “bullying.”

Now that DOGE has revealed Politico to be a government shill supported by $8 million in subscriptions and the BBC has been getting US taxpayer money, it will be interesting to see where other media organizations fit in this equation. Which ones are getting such a subvention? Will it be the AP? Axios that like Politico appeared out of blue with a raft of sudden scoops? Time will tell.

But not about CBS. We already know all we ned to about that laughable institution.