A kill is mandatory
January 6, 2004 10:24 PM   Subscribe

A kill is mandatory. An AP deleted post.
posted by stbalbach (26 comments total)
 
I second the motion.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:26 PM on January 6, 2004


Newsies and their wild lingo
posted by destro at 10:39 PM on January 6, 2004


It's called a correction. Print newspapers issue them after the fact; wire services put out a request for deletion and replace the original with a corrected copy. See more examples here and here (scroll to "Philadelphia.")

Here as in the prior cases, a reporter made a factual mistake. Happens all the time. Not a BFD.
posted by PrinceValium at 10:46 PM on January 6, 2004


Disconcerting, though.
posted by squirrel at 11:08 PM on January 6, 2004


no, stfhofonfls-kjam is disconcerting.
posted by quonsar at 11:11 PM on January 6, 2004


I posted to MeTa. Should I write an FPP about it?
posted by punishinglemur at 11:12 PM on January 6, 2004


So does this mean that Rush is not a lying, hypocritical, duplicitous, gaping asshole?
posted by wsg at 11:13 PM on January 6, 2004


No, just a hypocritical, duplicitous really annoying person.
posted by namespan at 11:17 PM on January 6, 2004


The girdle is mandatory.
posted by squirrel at 11:33 PM on January 6, 2004


Dear god, Limbaugh's got the AP in his hip pocket. Who else has this sick fascistic blowhard bought off?
posted by xmutex at 11:39 PM on January 6, 2004


Ummmm... squirrel, please tell me Bill Hicks gets more erudite than that.
posted by namespan at 11:44 PM on January 6, 2004


The fuss being made over this (before it showed up here) is just silly.

"Rush Limbaugh has not been charged with doctor shopping"

And he hasn't, so the story has been retracted, as it should be. The buzz however, is that his lawyers are negotiating a plea bargain.

"So does this mean that Rush is not a lying, hypocritical, duplicitous, gaping asshole?"

Nope, it just means that he hasn't been formally charged with a crime. Oh, and you left out "pill popping".

My favorite story waiting to break is that
"Bill Bennett, morality czar who lost millions on gambling has now been discovered to indulge in S&M sexual practices with a Las Vegas Dominatrix."
posted by 2sheets at 12:30 AM on January 7, 2004


"And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused, and they ought to be convicted, and they ought to be sent up. Too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too."

- Rush Limbaugh (via 2sheets' link)
posted by squirrel at 12:50 AM on January 7, 2004


First it was UPI who went to whoring, now its AP (although this link is not one of the best examples.)

Will Reuters capitulate too?

When the fourth column fails does democracy fall?
posted by nofundy at 4:33 AM on January 7, 2004


I guess the tide at MetaAP went his way.
posted by inksyndicate at 7:11 AM on January 7, 2004


>The fact that the AP uses the word "insurgents" rather than "terrorists" >or "murderers" would suggest that the existence of this "bias" is >debatable.

:) You trying to say they would only come across as conservative if they wrote, "Coalition troops were attacked today by scheming, wicked, cowardly enemies of America today."
posted by inksyndicate at 7:13 AM on January 7, 2004


The fact that the AP uses the word "insurgents" rather than "terrorists" or "murderers" would suggest that the existence of this "bias" is debatable.

I don't understand this argument. "Terrorist," "murderer," and "insurgent" aren't synonyms. They mean different things, and "insurgent" is a better description of an armed resistor. It's more precise. To flip it around, Lee Boyd Malvo is a murderer, but not an insurgent. If you're part of an organized effort to kill occupying soldiers, you're an insurgent (and I'm not saying that one's morally better than the other; or that the terms are mutually exclusive. I suppose you could argue that terrorists and insurgents are subsets of murderers, dividied by motivation).

This is muddy, but it's early and my brain hasn't unthawed from the commute.
posted by COBRA! at 7:17 AM on January 7, 2004


Jeez, guys, what AP did is called a "bulletin kill" and is no big deal. They make a mistake, such as erroneously and defamatorily saying that someone has been charged with a crime, and they kill the story and replace it with a new one, called a "writethru."

I used to work for the AP, and bulletin kills happened occasionally. It's a big deal to the reporter and the editors involved, but it shouldn't be a big deal to others.

The story that was killed said, or implied, that Limbaugh had been charged with a crime. He has not been charged. It's silly to suggest that there's something wrong with the AP telling its members not to use the defamatory story. What if the story were about you? What if the AP reported incorrectly that you had been charged with a crime? Wouldn't you expect the AP to tell its members not to use the story, and instead to use a correct version?

Just because Limbaugh is a jerk doesn't mean that the AP is in his pocket when it kills an article that accidentally defames him.

If the editors had not spotted the error during that news cycle, they would have had to issue a "corrective," which is a correction that AP members are supposed to run if they ran the original erroneous article. A bulletin kill is not a correction; it's a request that a member news organization not use the erroneous story, preventing the need for a correction.

If you go around saying that the AP is corrupt because it tells member newspapers not to run defamatory stories, no one is going to take you seriously.
posted by Holden at 7:49 AM on January 7, 2004


" Lee Boyd Malvo is a murderer, but not an insurgent."

But since he made people afraid to pump gas and go to the grocery wasn't he really a terrorist? Of course, if he had been the alert level would have been raised. What was I thinking.
posted by shagoth at 7:53 AM on January 7, 2004


Since this thread is stupid and likely toast anyway, I'd just like to point out that Bill Hicks is (was) the most overrated comedian ever.
posted by norm at 8:03 AM on January 7, 2004


Yeah, I don't know, I keep hearing people raving about Bill Hicks, then I download his MP3s and they don't seem to do anything for me. Did he break some taboos and introduce our current mode of comedy, or something?
posted by inksyndicate at 8:19 AM on January 7, 2004


Norm,

WRONG!

Bill Hicks was a laser beam of truth and he was frikkin' hilarious. I wish he was here to comment on the current political milieu.
posted by wsg at 9:04 AM on January 7, 2004


trharlan, it doesn't surprise me that you find the absence of a neoconservative bias as proof of a liberal bias; still, your logic is flawed. I think you've been watching too much Fox news, which frequently refers to bands of Iraqis with guns but of unknown affiliation as terrorists... as if ANYONE who is fighting our occupation is by definition a terrorist.

On Bill Hicks, I'm surprised to hear people chirp up to point out that he wasn't always brilliant. Duh, people. Who is or ever was?
posted by squirrel at 10:02 AM on January 7, 2004


As someone who used to monitor the AP wire in a newsroom, what Holden said is absolutely true. You'd be surprised (actually, you probably wouldn't) at the number of corrections or commands of various types came over the wire regarding both stories and photos -- sometimes as simple as fixing the spelling on someone's name.

They all come through in very official-sounding language with an authoritarian-ish tone. "Kill" is jargon, not some nefarious edict.
posted by me3dia at 10:09 AM on January 7, 2004


I keep hearing people raving about Bill Hicks, then I download his MP3s and they don't seem to do anything for me. Did he break some taboos and introduce our current mode of comedy, or something?


Same for me. He cursed a lot and was a liberal. That seems to be about the extent of his appeal. Molly Ivins' stuff is smarter and funnier by far than any of BH's stuff, although maybe I've just avoided his comedy masterpieces.

Norm,

WRONG!


That's pretty insightful. Thanks for convincing me!

On Bill Hicks, I'm surprised to hear people chirp up to point out that he wasn't always brilliant. Duh, people. Who is or ever was?

Was he ever brilliant? Point me to some of his brilliant stuff. I will retract if proven wrong.

(Sorry for the derail, but there's not much of a there there anyway)
posted by norm at 10:11 AM on January 7, 2004


Too bad no one actually linked to the corrected story off the AP wire.

Here's the sentence that was likely changed:

Prosecutors are examining Limbaugh's medical records to determine whether he should be charged with "doctor shopping."
posted by calwatch at 9:15 PM on January 7, 2004


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