#HowAPWouldReport World History

After yesterday’s appalling terrorist attack in Jerusalem, which left a three-month-old girl dead, Associated Press ran a jaw-droppingly misleading headline: “ISRAELI POLICE SHOOT MAN IN EAST JERUSALEM”. (Yes, it did.) The headline was soon changed, but the URL retains the original wording. There could be no finer illustration of Matti Friedman’s provocative claim that AP forces its stories to fit its pre-determined narrative of Israeli villainy and Palestinian helplessness.

Within hours, Gidon Shaviv of CAMERA suggested an online game of Tweeting satirical news headlines, which Twitter user @JudgeDan48 got rolling with the hashtag: #HowAPWouldReport: how would AP report other news using the same distortive lens applied to Israel? As an example, he used the 2012 mass shooting at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado: “Aurora: Police arrest man in cinema”, he quipped.

Here are some of Twitter users’ best satirical AP headlines…

#HowAPWouldReport 9/11

https://twitter.com/JudgeDan48/status/525036561163755520

#HowAPWouldReport The emancipation of the slaves

Lincoln Confiscates Property From Cotton Farmers #HowAPWouldReport

— Angry Bell (@Angrybell) October 22, 2014

#HowAPWouldReport The sinking of the Titanic 

https://twitter.com/JudgeDan48/status/525036175199703040

#HowAPWouldReport The Blitz 

https://twitter.com/TzviZucker/status/525042782742667264

#HowAPWouldReport King Henry VIII beheads Queen Anne

https://twitter.com/EylonALevy/status/525040671841730560

#HowAPWouldReport The flattening of Hiroshima

https://twitter.com/rotorouter/status/525045060963143680

#HowAPWouldReport The Normandy landings

Thousands of German soldiers reported killed after US, British & Canadian forces invade Normandy #HowAPWouldReport

— Joseph Melamed (@JpMelamed) October 23, 2014

#HowAPWouldReport The Lewinsky affair 

Lack of dry cleaner open 24 hours a day leads to President Clinton's impeachment. #HowAPWouldReport

— Sergio Geralnik (@sgeralnik) October 23, 2014

#HowAPWouldReport The downing of MH17 over Ukraine

Malaysian Jetliner Obstructs Path Of Missile Over Eastern Ukraine #HowAPWouldReport

— PreOccupied Territory (@POTerritory) October 22, 2014

I wish it were a joke. But when a three-month-old baby is murdered in cold blood and the world’s foremost news sources think the subsequent shooting of the terrorist (“man”) is the most important feature of the story, the tears are not from laughter.