AP Insider Leak: Why The AP Is So Biased Against Israel

A former worker for AP Television News (APTN) sent LGF an explanation of the built-in bias of the news-gathering operation that provides so many pictures to so many television networks throughout the world.

Money:

...there is another significant part of their business model that affects the rest of the business. While most of the world takes news pictures with minimal interpretation beyond editing, the Arab Gulf States have asked for and receive a different and far more expensive service. These states pay for a complete news report service including full editing and voice overs from known journalists. The news organizations in the Arab countries don’t do anything (beyond verify that they are appropriate for local tastes) before broadcast.

What this means is that while there are around 50 people producing news pictures for the whole world working in Camden at any time, there are a further 50 Arabic speaking staff producing finished stories exclusively for the Arab states of the gulf. This has a tremendous effect on the whole feel of the building as these two teams feed pictures and people back and forth and sit in adjacent work areas. The slant of the stories required by the Gulf States has a definite effect on which footage is used and discarded. This affects both the Gulf newsroom and the main global newsroom.

Forgive the broken record, but while lefties stew over "corporate management of the news" and the like, they seem uninterested in another money-driven bias in newsgathering and dissemination.

And let me ask another question. Does AP believe the news should be the objective, unslanted truth or not?

If they do-- what the hell are they doing preparing a special package of news for the particular tastes of the Arab world, different from the package offered to the rest of the world?

Is the news the news, or is the news what "local tastes" demand?

posted by Ace at 05:48 PM

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