Is the Associated Press a trustworthy source?

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

can you trust the associated press

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.

Comments

"Nazis" are considered "right-wing" because they are opposed to the current regime of enforced multiculturalism and political correctness- a regime fully supported by Pres. Bush along with the anarchists and Marxists who initiated the violence in Toledo. That being said, dressing up in the uniforms and spouting the slogans of the German government of 1933-45 is an activity best suited for morons, sociopaths and government informants. Outfits like the NSM would no doubt go out of business were it not for the financial support of the FBI,ATF,ADL and SPLC. But all this obscures the fact that the real issue is the preservation of the rights of free speech and peaceful assembly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

NAZIs were never "right wing" in the sense that they believed in less government, etc. NAZI was short for National Socialist. Socialism, is more left-wing then right. But, I'm not calling left wingers nazis. On a technical point, it's better to call NAZIs fools, or idiots.

The AP story speaks for itself.

They do the same thing in Germany, where they officially keep tabs on 'Rechtextremismus', even though there is nothing political about most of the stuff they track, mostly cases of assault and things like that (against foreigners, for example). Every time the 'rightwing' (personally, I'm not sure these labels always have a lot of meaning anymore) NPD holds a march all the violence comes from the 'leftwing' counter demonstrators, and it's pretty much the same for what happens on May 1, but this violence is mostly excused by the media -- I never hear about 'Linksextremismus', although ex-Stasi outing happens now and then.