Connecting

March 24, 2023

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Colleagues,

Good Friday morning on this March 24, 2023,

Just when you thought you had the AP Stylebook down pat, along come more changes…

At the ACES: Society for Editing conference Thursday, Stylebook Editor (and Connecting colleague) Paula Froke announced new and updated entries in the AP Stylebook, considered the style bible for the news industry. Read about them in our opening story.

We also bring you thoughts of colleagues on the White House press corps flap earlier this week – with an invitation by David Briscoe to former members of the press corps to voice their own opinions – and a piece by Charlie Hanley relating to the “Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction” that helped launch the war in Iraq 20 years ago and the media’s failure to challenge them.

And, we bring you photos from Thursday's induction of the latest members of the New York Journalism Hall of Fame - one of them being our colleague Edie Lederer, AP's senior employee and its chief UN correspondent. Thanks to colleague Cragg Hines for sharing the photos.

Have a great weekend – be safe, stay healthy!

Paul

AP Stylebook additions range from ChatGPT to greenwashing

By Nicole Meir

During a panel at the ACES: The Society for Editing national conference in Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday, Stylebook Editor Paula Froke announced new and updated AP Stylebook entries that are now available on AP Stylebook Online.

They include:

Expanded guidance on climate change, with new entries such as carbon dioxide, carbon footprint, desertification and greenwashing.

A new entry on artificial intelligence text chatbot ChatGPT that advises against using language that attributes human characteristics to this and similar tools.

New philanthropy terms including nonprofit vs. not-for-profit, GivingTuesday, LYBUNT and crowdfunding.

A change in AP style from LGBTQ to LGBTQ+ to make it more inclusive.

A new entry on Civil Rights Movement, which should be capitalized when referring to the specific historical period in the U.S. mainly in the 1950s and '60s.

The addition of B.C.E. and C.E. as acceptable options in referencing a calendar year in the period before Christ and anno Domini: in the year of the Lord, respectively. B.C.E. stands for Before the Common Era while C.E. stands for the Common Era.

A new entry on euthanasia, medically assisted suicide, physician-assisted suicide that spells out proper usage for each term.

An updated entry on borscht, which is a soup or stew, usually made from beets, eaten across Eastern Europe, Russia and elsewhere.

The AP Stylebook is the definitive resource for journalists and a must-have reference for writers, editors, students and professionals. It provides fundamental guidelines for spelling, language, punctuation, usage and journalistic style, and helps writers and editors in all fields navigate complex and evolving language questions. Find AP Stylebook on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and online.

Click here for link to this story.

White House correspondents flap: Who’s being arrogant?

David Briscoe - Having never been assigned full-time to the White House during my 15 years in the AP WDC bureau, I am not the best person to comment on the current flap over decorum, arrogance and the AP’s role in major news conferences.

Except for the last administration, I believe AP has traditionally had one of the first (if not the first) questions at White House briefings and news conferences. I’d like to know the current “rules” and whether it’s the White House or the correspondents association that guides the process. Whichever it is, that’s where grievances should be aired, not in public fora, although I allow that the history and severity of the offense may justify more drastic tactics — either by the complainant, other reporters or the White House press office.

I have participated in more than a few White House briefings, joint presidential news conferences with world leaders and other press events with top U.S. and foreign officials as head of DC-based AP foreign correspondents when assigned to AP World Services until 2001 and as a foreign correspondent based in Asia in the 80s.

In 40 years, I witnessed more than a few incidents of rudeness, arrogance and downright shameful behavior on the part of journalists. I’ve even felt the urge to apologize, as our White House correspondent did recently, to an official or guest for the behavior of both my American and foreign colleagues. (But I don’t recall ever having actually doing so.)

I remember vividly standing in the back as a visiting and relatively inexperienced AP reporter at a 1980s White House briefing where ABC’s long-time anchor and reporter Sam Donaldson dominated with a series of what I thought then were unnecessarily bombastic and rude questions. Later, I came to appreciate the need for Donaldson’s approach under certain circumstances, although I much prefer the direct, substantive and on-target questioning and follow-up of the long line of AP White House reporters I’ve observed or worked with since the 1970s.           

More often, I’ve felt the need to confront officials (both U.S. and others) for avoiding, ducking or outright ignoring valid questions from reporters. Worst of all are those who consistently and quite directly attack reporters, led by the most-recent ex-president whose name I prefer not to promote.

My worst personal experience was in the 1980s with UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick of the Reagan administration, who at a news conference in Manila accused me of asking the dumbest question she had ever heard: I asked whether she could differentiate between the administration’s support for authoritarian President Ferdinand E. Marcos and its support for the Philippine people. Maybe my wording wasn’t exactly as I remember, but her attack seemed quite personal as she glared at me from a few feet away and never answered the question.

I’d like to think I then said something about how she was refusing to answer what I still think was an important question getting at the key problem with Reagan support for authoritarian regimes, but I’m not sure what I said.

The point is that reporters need to be somewhat contrarian and even confrontational when it comes to public officials but best avoid public spats with each other. A White House briefing may not the right forum for airing grievances against fellow reporters or even the White House press office.

 Sometimes playing the victim in front of the world (or the cast of Ted Lasso) is just another form of bullying.        

 (I look forward to more responses from former White House reporters.)

Happy anniversary, ‘Saddam’s WMD’ 

U.N. weapons inspectors investigate storage facilities at Al-Tuwaitha, the main site of Iraq's former nuclear weapons program in Baghdad Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2003. (AP Photo)

Charlie Hanley – Among the week’s media lookbacks at the Iraq invasion’s 20^th anniversary, it was disheartening to see next to nothing on the disastrous failures by those same media organizations in 2002-2003 to question “Saddam’s WMD,” the phony casus belli. 

Let’s take a short, if unpleasant, walk down memory lane. 

Our own AP, of course, was as culpable as any. “Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” “Iraq’s chemical arsenal,” “including modern nerve agents,” “Saddam’s chemical and biological arsenal” – such unchallenged, matter-of-fact references filled wire stories from Washington in the lead-up to war. AP clients like CNN topped their reporting with such cheerleading overlines as “IRAQ COUNTDOWN” and “TARGET: IRAQ.” 

Most notoriously, the NY Times’s Judy Miller, duped by unnamed Iraqi-exile sources and, apparently, her own biases and Timeswoman’s hunger for Page 1 bylines, pushed story after story about hidden weapons stockpiles, fantasies all. 

Miller eventually took a fall, but let’s remember that an entire NYT editorial structure abetted her nonsense. And the worst of it, a Sept. 8, 2002, Page 1 lead that claimed Iraq “has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons” by seeking certain aluminum tubes, was a double-bylined story. She was not alone. More on that anon. 

(By the way, I once searched online for that story, using a sentence from their intro, and turned up, lo and behold, a Bush White House “fact” sheet. It was verbatim. That’s not stenography. That’s cut-and-paste.) 

So it was troubling this week to see the same paper-of-record allowing a columnist to defend (!) this illegal war of aggression, which cut short hundreds of thousands of lives. More subtly, the Times also ran a lookback telling readers it wasn’t until 2004, thanks to CIA sleuthing, that we learned there were no WMD in Iraq. Sorry, great Gray Lady, but you’re still wrong after all these years: The U.N. inspectors established that by early 2003 (as reported by yours truly at the time, though not by the NYT). We went to war anyway. 

As for our AP, several years later a comprehensive, candid internal review of the Iraq falldowns was carried out. (“Hanley was not always easy to work with,” it candidly concluded at one point. Mea culpa; I was a little overwrought, I guess, at what was going on.) 

The review’s bottom line: “Our WMD reporting was too accepting of Bush administration assertions.” Indeed. Understated, perhaps, but elsewhere this in-depth post-mortem was full of apt and helpful guidelines to future journalistic behavior. 

As for that second Times byline of 2002, the cut-and-paste job, it was Michael Gordon. And I now see the MG byline at the WSJ tackling a new story: The Chinese virus “lab leak.” Caveat lector. 

I’ll end with a bit from one of our clearest-eyed media critics, Greg Mitchell, who recalls speaking with a young reporter who felt war reporting was “the highest calling” for a journalist. That’s wrong, a troubled Mitchell writes. “The highest calling in journalism is not war reporting. It’s finding the story that would help prevent a war.”

Snapshots from New York Journalism Hall of Fame induction

Here’s a snap of AP’s Edie Lederer with her New York Journalism Hall of Fame medal awarded Thursday at a Deadline Club luncheon in Manhattan. Other awardees: Gay Talese, Robert Cato, Ken Auletta, Carole Simpson, Anthony Mason.  

Honorees, from left, Ken Auletta, Anthony Mason, Edie Lederer, Carole Simpson, Gay Talese, Robert Caro.

Edie with friend Lynda Gould, left, and Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary-General of UN Department of Global Communications.

Photos by Cragg Hines

Who's the guy with the dark hair?

Peggy Walsh - Andy Lippman and I were catching up on old times, friends and funny stories when we were bureau chiefs in California. I sent him this photo and his response was "Who is that boy with all the dark hair?????" This was taken at my going-away party in 1990 when I left AP-San Francisco to become executive editor of the New York Times News Service. Andy's hair may be different now but his smile and wonderful disposition are still the same.

Connecting wishes Happy Birthday

On Saturday to…

Paul Haven

Josh Hoffner

Joe Macenka

Dennis Spurlin

On Sunday to…

Frank Baker

Jerry Schwartz

Stories of interest

An obit lover took her passion, and dead people’s life lessons, to TikTok (Poynter)

By: Kristen Hare

One year at Christmas, Mary McGreevy’s family went around the table and shared headlines for their obituaries. McGreevy’s mother, who worked as a journalist, journalism professor and later a personal historian, thought her own headline should read that she “never got hair right,” McGreevy said. “That’s completely me now.”

She is getting TikTok right, though.

McGreevy, a Minnesota-based video producer, took her love of obituaries and the lessons she finds between the lines and created Tips From Dead People, an account with more than 20,000 followers.

“It’s been in my blood for a long time,” she said, “and I’ve always, always, always been an obituary reader.”

From years of reading obits, McGreevy would see details about a person’s life and want to know more.

“You make these assumptions and you have these questions about the stories that aren’t told,” she said, “And then when you get older you realize the stories aren’t told because they’re too expensive.”

Read more here.

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DeSantis wants ‘media accountability.’ A new bill makes suing journalists easier. (Washington Post)

By Elahe Izadi and Lori Rozsa

Ron DeSantis sat in an anchorman’s chair, peering at a camera as phrases such as “SPEAK TRUTH” flashed on a screen behind him.

Presiding over a setup that resembled a cable-news panel show, the governor of Florida teed up provocative video clips and welcomed guests into his mock studio for what his office called a “roundtable discussion” that was streamed on social media last month. Topic: “Legacy media defamation practices.” Guests: Plaintiffs and lawyers who had sued major media companies, including Fox News and The Washington Post.

“These companies are probably the leading purveyors of disinformation in our entire society,” DeSantis said. “There needs to be an ability for people to defend themselves.”

The governor, who is expected to challenge Donald Trump and a growing field for the 2024 GOP nomination for president, has made open antipathy toward “corporate media” a key part of his brand in his rapid ascent in conservative politics. He shuns talks with mainstream news outlets in favor of exclusive interviews with conservative platforms. His office keeps a growing catalogue of what it considers media hoaxes. And his press aides mock journalists by sharing their emails on social media.

Read more here. Shared by Richard Chady.

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Lawyer demands Fox apologize for Jan. 6 conspiracy theory (AP)

By DAVID BAUDER

NEW YORK (AP) — The lawyer for a one-time supporter of former President Donald Trump who has been caught up in a Jan. 6 conspiracy theory demanded Thursday that Fox News and host Tucker Carlson retract and apologize for repeated “falsehoods” about the man’s supposed intentions.

The action taken on behalf of Raymond Epps specifically mentions a voting machine company’s pending $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox, an indication that people caught up in political conspiracy theories are fighting back.

The lawyer, Michael Teter, said he gave Fox formal notice of potential litigation. Fox News had no immediate comment.

Epps, a former Marine from Arizona, traveled to Washington, D.C., for Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, rally and was caught there on video twice, once urging demonstrators to go to the Capitol.

He was never arrested, leading some to theorize that he was a government agent conducting a “false flag” operation to whip up trouble that would be blamed on Trump supporters. There has been no evidence to suggest that was true, and Epps told the congressional committee investigating the attack that he has never worked at or been an informant for a government agency.

Read more here.

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DeSantis walks back ‘territorial dispute’ remark on Ukraine (AP)

By MEG KINNARD

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is walking back his characterization of Russia’s war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute,” following criticism from a number of fellow Republicans who expressed concern about the potential 2024 presidential candidate’s dismissive description of the conflict.

In excerpts of an interview with Piers Morgan set to air Thursday on Fox Nation, DeSantis said his earlier comments referenced ongoing fighting in the eastern Donbas region, as well as Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea. Ukraine’s borders are internationally recognized, including by the United Nations.

“What I’m referring to is where the fighting is going on now, which is that eastern border region Donbas, and then Crimea, and you have a situation where Russia has had that. I don’t think legitimately, but they had,” DeSantis said, according to excerpts. “There’s a lot of ethnic Russians there. So, that’s some difficult fighting, and that’s what I was referring to, and so it wasn’t that I thought Russia had a right to that, and so if I should have made that more clear, I could have done it.”

DeSantis made his initial comments last week in a written response to questions sent to declared and potential GOP presidential candidates by Fox News host Tucker Carlson. The Florida governor, seen as a top rival to former President Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination, said that defending Ukraine wasn’t a national security priority for the U.S., and he downplayed the Russian invasion.

Read more here.

The Final Word

Shared by Len Iwanski

Coming events

Updated Registration for May 19-21 AP Connecting Reunion in Texas

Note: Adds more attendees, including ye olde Connecting editor Paul Stevens. Join us! Register by May 1 (details below).

Please join us for the May 19-21, 2023, AP Connecting Reunion in the Dallas area. Co-hosts are Mike Holmes of Omaha imikeholmes@cox.net and Diana Heidgerd of Dallas heidgerd@flash.net  

Please pay your own way to all events. A list of people planning to attend is at the end of this registration advisory (will be updated). Two group meals are planned, Friday night May 19 ($25 per person) and Saturday night May 20 ($40 per person). You are invited to attend either meal or both (total cost: $65).  

The reunion hotel is the Residence Inn DFW Airport North/Grapevine (details below), with free parking, free airport shuttle and free breakfast. This hotel also has a bar, restaurant and outdoor pool. Please reserve your hotel room by May 1. AP Reunion check-in will begin, with your co-hosts, on Friday afternoon, May 19, in the hotel lobby.  

GROUP SCHEDULE: 

Friday night, May 19: BBQ dinner ($25 per person) at Meat-U-Anywhere in Trophy Club, operated by former AP journalist David Sedeno & his family.

Saturday night, May 20: Tex-Mex dinner ($40 per person) at the reunion hotel: Residence Inn DFW Airport North/Grapevine.

Sunday afternoon, May 21: Limited number of tickets ($15 per person) available for Texas Rangers vs. Colorado Rockies game at Globe Life Field in Arlington. Join Diana & Paul Heidgerd at the game!  

REUNION REGISTRATION (deadline May 1): 

Email the name(s) of those attending & a contact phone number to Diana Heidgerd:  heidgerd@flash.net

How many for group dinner Friday night, May 19 ($25 per person) at Meat-U-Anywhere in Trophy Club, 91 Trophy Club Drive, Trophy Club, TX 76262. Includes BBQ meal, soft drink or tea, plus dessert. Restaurant is BYOB, no alcohol sold on the premises. Convenience stores are nearby. Please coordinate with Mike Holmes if you wish to donate funds/beverages for a 5 p.m.-6 p.m. happy hour imikeholmes@cox.net  Dinner 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m. Note: We have to confirm the number of paid meals, so if you commit to attending BBQ dinner please be prepared to pay for your spot. You can reserve a spot but cancel no later than May 1, at no cost to you. More details later on paying.

How many for group dinner Saturday night, May 20 ($40 per person), from 6 p.m.-8 p.m. at the Residence Inn DFW Airport North/Grapevine. Includes Tex-Mex buffet, iced tea, plus dessert. Beer, wine & mixed drinks available for sale at hotel bar. Note: We have to confirm the number of paid meals, so if you commit to attending Tex-Mex dinner please be prepared to pay for your spot. You can reserve a spot but cancel no later than May 1, at no cost to you. More details later on paying.

How many Texas Rangers tickets for Sunday afternoon, May 21, at 1:35 p.m. vs Colorado Rockies? ($15 per ticket). Two game promotions: Rangers Powder Blue Visor (first 15,000 guests) & Blue Bell Ice Cream Sunday treats for $1 (kids 13 & under).  

GROUP HOTEL/RESERVE A ROOM: Includes free shuttle to/from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and within 5 miles of hotel.

Residence Inn DFW Airport North/Grapevine

2020 State Highway 26

Grapevine, TX 76051

972-539-8989 (call this hotel number to request the free airport shuttle)

Use this link to book (by May 1) at the AP Reunion rate: Book your group rate for AP Reunion

Would you like an accessible/special needs room? Call the hotel directly & ask for the ”AP Reunion” rate. 972-539-8989.

Some possible individual outings:  

Main Street Fest in nearby Grapevine, all weekend. Free shuttle from hotel. Mainstreetfest.com

Fort Worth cowboy history & museums, including Fort Worth Stockyards. Fortworthstockyards.org

History of 1963 JFK assassination. The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas. JFK.org

Current presidential history, on SMU campus in Dallas. The George W. Bush Presidential Center. Bushcenter.org

Tour AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. Attstadium.com

Reminder: please register by May 1:  heidgerd@flash.net 

People planning to attend: (will be updated)

-- Amanda Barnett

-- Barry & Patty Bedlan

-- Schuyler Dixon

-- Katie Fairbank

-- Steve Graham

-- Stephen & Andrea Hawkins

-- Diana & Paul Heidgerd

-- Mike Holmes

-- Dave & Darlene Koenig

-- Stefani Kopenec

-- Mark Lambert

-- Dale & Linda Leach

-- John & Eileen Lumpkin

-- John McFarland

-- Michelle Mittelstadt

-- Charles & Barbara Richards

-- Linda & Ed Sargent

-- David & Ellen Sedeno

-- Ed & Barbara Staats

-- Jamie Stengle

-- Paul Stevens

-- Terry Wallace

-- Sylvia & Will Wingfield

Today in History - March 25, 2023

Today is Friday, March 24, the 83rd day of 2023. There are 282 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On March 24, 1989, the supertanker Exxon Valdez (vahl-DEEZ’) ran aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and began leaking an estimated 11 million gallons of crude oil.

On this date:

In 1765, Britain enacted the Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers.

In 1832, a mob in Hiram, Ohio, attacked, tarred and feathered Mormon leaders Joseph Smith Jr. and Sidney Rigdon.

In 1882, German scientist Robert Koch announced in Berlin that he had discovered the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis.

In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill granting future independence to the Philippines.

In 1976, the president of Argentina, Isabel Peron, was deposed by her country’s military.

In 1980, one of El Salvador’s most respected Roman Catholic Church leaders, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, was shot to death by a sniper as he celebrated Mass in San Salvador.

In 1995, after 20 years, British soldiers stopped routine patrols in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

In 1999, NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time in its 50-year existence that it had ever attacked a sovereign country. Thirty-nine people were killed when fire erupted in the Mont Blanc tunnel in France and burned for two days.

In 2010, keeping a promise he’d made to anti-abortion Democratic lawmakers to assure passage of his historic health care legislation, President Barack Obama signed an executive order against using federal funds to pay for elective abortions covered by private insurance.

In 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525, an Airbus A320, crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board; investigators said the jetliner was deliberately downed by the 27-year-old co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz.

In 2016, a U.N. war crimes court convicted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of genocide and nine other charges for orchestrating a campaign of terror that left 100,000 people dead during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia; Karadzic was sentenced to 40 years in prison. (The sentence was later increased to life in prison.)

In 2020, the International Olympic Committee announced that the Summer Olympics in Tokyo would be postponed until 2021 because of the coronavirus.

Ten years ago: Just days after the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on a previously unannounced trip to Baghdad, confronted Iraqi officials for continuing to grant Iran access to its airspace and said Iraq’s behavior was raising questions about its reliability as a partner. Hundreds of thousands marched in Paris protesting the imminent legalization of same-sex marriage. (It would be signed into law just over two months later).

Five years ago: In the streets of the nation’s capital and in cities across the country, hundreds of thousands of teenagers and their supporters rallied against gun violence, spurred by a call to action from student survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead. An extreme right-wing group in Greece claimed responsibility for an arson attack on an Afghan community center in Athens.

One year ago: Ukraine accused Moscow of forcibly taking hundreds of thousands of civilians from shattered Ukrainian cities to Russia, where some could be used as “hostages” to pressure Kyiv to give up. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell announced that he would vote against confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson, saying he “cannot and will not” support the groundbreaking nominee for a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court. Stephen Wilhite, the inventor of the internet-popular short-video format, the GIF, died.

Today’s Birthdays: Fashion and costume designer Bob Mackie is 84. Former Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire is 76. Rock musician Lee Oskar is 75. Singer Nick Lowe is 74. Rock musician Dougie Thomson (Supertramp) is 72. Fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger is 72. Actor Donna Pescow is 69. Actor Robert Carradine is 69. Sen. Mike Braun, R-Indiana, is 69. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is 67. Actor Kelly LeBrock is 63. TV personality Star Jones is 61. Country-rock musician Patterson Hood (Drive-By Truckers) is 59. Actor Peter Jacobson is 58. Rock singer-musician Sharon Corr (The Corrs) is 53. Actor Lauren Bowles is 53. Actor Lara Flynn Boyle is 53. Rapper Maceo (AKA P.A. Pasemaster Mase) is 53. Actor Megyn Price is 52. Actor Jim Parsons is 50. Christian rock musician Chad Butler (Switchfoot) is 49. Actor Alyson Hannigan is 49. Former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning is 47. Actor Amanda Brugel (TV: “The Handmaid’s Tale”) is 46. Actor Olivia Burnette is 46. Actor Jessica Chastain is 46. Actor Amir Arison is 45. Actor Lake Bell is 44. Rock musician Benj Gershman (O.A.R.) is 43. Neo-soul musician Jesse Phillips (St. Paul & the Broken Bones) is 43. Actor Philip Winchester (TV: “Strike Back”) is 42. Dancer Val Chmerkovskiy is 37. Actor Keisha Castle-Hughes is 33.