While I’m no fan of the Associated Press, the story cited is the product of the Kyodo News Service of Japan. The A.P. is guilty of picking up the story and not checking or correcting it, but they were not the ones making the original error. If one reads the opening line that is quite apparent because it says,"TOKYO, Sept. 8 (AP) - (Kyodo.” The A.P., coming first, shows they are distributing it, and the Kyodo, coming second, shows they are the originating source of the story. If I had a sinister mind I would think that was the A.P.’s way of getting something into print without taking responsibility for it, however I don’t think they are that smart or clever.
In this instance I will give the A.P. a pass because it is common practice to use other sources without properly vetting the item in question. We see it all the time in newspapers where the local paper might carry a story from the A.P., U.P.I., N.Y. Times, or any of a number of other sources and make no effort to check or verify it. The local paper assumes that the originating source has properly checked and vetted it and simply runs it. Sadly, that assumption frequently turns out to be wrong and the story can contain many errors. And, of course, there are times when a local paper or news service may choose to run a story that they know to be untrue or filled with errors for various reasons, but I would think that this was a case of the person picking up the story simply didn’t bother to really read or think about it because that part wasn’t central to the story. It is very easy to pay attention to the parts you are interested in and overlook the rest. So my guess is they were simply sloppy, something I have observed many times when it comes to the A.P.
When it comes to issues on which the MSM place a low priority and are not used to covering regularly themselves --like global warming, you know-- little things, that the AP wouldn’t have actually covered themselves, things like what treaties the US has actually agreed to, unanimous votes in the Senate thwarting a major presidential policy goal, those little bitty things can slip through even the layers and layers and layers of fact-checkers and editors they otherwise so scrupulously maintain.
Fritz has a good point, but the larger issue here is AP’s role as cheerleader for the anti-Bush, anti-Republican, and usually anti-American forces; they truly are, along with the NY Times, CBS, NBC and most of the MSM—the media wing of the Democratic Party. On global warming in particular, AP fully buys into the ‘settled science’ nonsense and keeps churning out reports based on shoddy computer models that many scientists and computer modelers have now shown to be discredited. Just yesterday AP had a big story called “Polar Bear Population Seen Declining” (one of the lead rotating news items on AOL, much to my chagrin), which posits a 2/3 loss of polar bears by 2050—solely based on highly inaccurate computer models of climate change, models based on data, assumptions, and processes that even the latest IPCC report has low confidence in!
The real story with Kyoto is that Bill Clinton and Al Gore
supported Kyoto for purely political reasons, knowing full
well that it would never be ratified (for it was signed
AFTER the Senate voted 95-0 against it). Thus, Clinton and
Gore scored political points with the far left (and Europe)
without fear of being held accountable for the economic
disaster that any implementation of Kyoto would bring.
This story has been repeated and cited as incorrect so many times one would think the AP knows the reality by now. Have they ever made a statement on the story’s veracity?
While I have no problem with people disagreeing with my assessment, I think in order to do so you are giving the A.P. far more credit than they deserve. You would have to believe that they have a policy of deliberately printing a falsehood and keeping it secret. I know it often appears that way, but I can’t believe that such a policy could be kept secret.
There are far too many conspiracy theories floating around already and Occam’s Razor offers the better explanation of sloppiness and stupidity. I ask, do you truly believe that the A.P., with its many employees, could keep such a policy secret without it leaking? Never underestimate the power of stupidity. If you do, you will be very disappointed.
While I have no problem with people disagreeing with my assessment, I think in order to do so you are giving the A.P. far more credit than they deserve. You would have to believe that they have a policy of deliberately printing a falsehood and keeping it secret. I know it often appears that way, but I can’t believe that such a policy could be kept secret.
There are far too many conspiracy theories floating around already and Occam’s Razor offers the better explanation of sloppiness and stupidity. I ask, do you truly believe that the A.P., with its many employees, could keep such a policy secret without it leaking? Never underestimate the power of stupidity. If you do, you will be very disappointed.
From wikipedia;
Hanlon’s razor is an adage which reads:
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.â€
Your thesis is weakened by the fact that Instapundit busted AP on this exact same mistake in January 2007 as well, when they wrote: “The United States is no longer bound by Kyoto, which the Bush administration rejected after taking office in 2001.” (The story is no longer available online, but this was the tease quote Glenn picked for his link...)
Once, I’d grant they were stupid. The second time doesn’t rule out stupid, but certainly suggests more.
Sloppiness, stupidity or dishonesty. It’s a distinction without a difference born out not only by their unwillingness to correct inaccurate stories but their propensity for repeating them. It all adds up to their lack of credibility and refusal to be accountable.
Plunk, what you are telling me is that you believe that the A.P. has a policy of lying about the rejection of the Kyoto Accords and that they have managed to keep anyone from spilling the beans on that policy. I am well aware that they have screwed the pooch on this a number of times in the past, but I still find it hard to believe that they could keep such a policy secret. Plus, there have been stories under the A.P. banner that got it right which should make you reconsider your position. After all, if their goal was to tell the world that Bush rejected the Kyoto Accords, why did they report that Clinton didn’t submit it, or the results of the senate vote back in 98 or whenever it happened.
One other thing I would point out is that when one news service picks up material from another, they don’t correct any mistakes in the article they picked up. There even may be laws against that such as copy write laws, but I’m not familiar enough with those to say if correcting a news story is legal. I suspect that they could depending on the arraignments with the source, but I don’t know that to be true and under certain conditions may actually be illegal.
You are free to believe that the A.P. has a deep dark conspiracy going to promulgate that piece of misinformation, and if it makes you feel good to believe that, go ahead, but I simply find that position hard to believe and instead believe that they are stupid, lazy, and careless.
It’s all in the wrist --no, they wouldn’t fail to report the big news, in its day. They don’t get caught in misreporting the new facts, the first time. What they fail in is not keeping in mind those facts, as they relentlessly extend factually unsupported narratives on matters of national importance, particularly global warming, by subtly sliding false premises and backdrops into reporting on every next day’s events. And always in the same direction, politically, to the left.
