Is the Associated Press a trustworthy source?

Look at the following screengrab of an AP report reprinted at WRAL and let me know:

At post time, the headline is "White Supremacists Riot In Toledo, Ohio", and the first paragraph is:

TOLEDO, Ohio -- Protesters at a white supremacists' march threw rocks at police, vandalized vehicles and stores and cursed the mayor for allowing the event.

If you read the link, you'll see that the rest of the story directly contradicts the headline: it was the presumably all or mostly all black residents who rioted, not the Nazis. There were reportedly 600 or more people in the crowd, including an unstated number of rioters. However, there were at "least two dozen" Nazis, and the article doesn't report them rioting.

And, this is clearly an AP-supplied headline: the exact same headline and first paragraph appears here and here. ABC even publishes what appears to be an earlier-posted version of the same article here (note the lower ID number); the only difference is that the headline of that is "Emergency Declared After Anti-Nazi Riots".

And, note that the questionably-headlined ABC report even has a subtitle of "Mayor of Toledo, Ohio, Declares Emergency, Sets Curfew After Hundreds of White Supremacists Riot".

I sent an email to feedback *at* ap.org asking them how they could make this mistake and I'll update this report in the unlikely event I get a response.

While no one wants to defend Nazis, everyone needs to defend their right to peaceably assemble. If someone isn't going to do that, perhaps they should consider their citizenship options.

I believe the problem here is that the AP wants First Amendment protections for themselves, but isn't willing to extend that right to others with whom they disagree. Perhaps the AP as well as the residents of Toledo should attend the same Remedial Constitution class.

MultiCultiCult · Mon, 10/17/2005 - 04:18 · · Importance: 1