#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
4 American jetliners destroyed after struck by buildings, ground #HowAPWouldReport 9/11
— Judge Dan (@JudgeDan48) October 22, 2014
#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
#BREAKING Iceberg destroyed after collision with ocean liner #HowAPWouldReport #Titanic
— Judge Dan (@JudgeDan48) October 22, 2014
#HowAPWouldReport The Blitz
London Buildings Fall Down Unexpectedly#howAPwouldreport the Blitz
— Tzvi Zucker (@TzviZucker) October 22, 2014
#HowAPWouldReport King Henry VIII beheads Queen Anne
https://twitter.com/EylonALevy/status/525040671841730560
#HowAPWouldReport The flattening of Hiroshima
Complex atomic device badly damaged by Japanese city. #HowAPWouldReport
— "{{ Mitch ZF }}" (@rotorouter) October 22, 2014
#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
— PreOccupiedTerritory (@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.