News Bias in the Associated Press
By Peter Phillips
A new study conducted at Sonoma State University shows
widespread bias in Associate Press (AP) news reports favoring US
government positions.
On October 25, 2005 the American Civil Liberties (ACLU) posted to
their website 44 autopsy reports, acquired from American military
sources, covering the deaths of civilians who died while in US
military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002-2004. The autopsy
reports provided proof of widespread torture by US forces. A press
release by ACLU announcing the deaths was immediately picked up by AP
wire service making the story available to US corporate media
nationwide. A thorough check of Nexus-Lexus and Proquest library data
bases showed that at least 98 percent of the daily papers in the US
did not to pick up the story, nor did AP ever conduct follow up
coverage on the issue.
The Associated Press is a non-profit cooperative news wire service.
The AP with 3,700 employees has 242 bureaus worldwide that deliver
news reports 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to 121 countries in 5
languages including English, German, Dutch, French, and Spanish. In
the US alone, AP reaches 1,700 daily, weekly, non-English, college
newspapers, and 5,000 radio and television stations. AP reaches over
a billion people every day via print, radio, or television.
Alison Weir, Joy Ellison, and Peter Weir of the organization If
Americans Knew recently conducted research on the AP's reporting of
the Israel-Palestine conflict. The study was a statistical analysis
of the AP newswire in the year 2004, looking comparatively at the
numbers of Israeli and Palestinian deaths reported. In 2004 there
were 141 reports of Israeli deaths in AP headlines and lead
paragraphs, while in reality there were only 108 Israeli deaths.
During this same period, 543 Palestinian deaths were reported by AP,
while 821 Palestinians had actually been killed. The ratio of actual
number of Israeli conflict deaths to Palestinian deaths in 2004 was
1:7, yet AP reported deaths of Israelis to Palestinians at a 2:1
ratio.
The same could be said of AP's reporting of children's deaths. Nine
reports of Israeli children's deaths were reported by the AP in
headlines and leading paragraphs in 2004, while eight actually
occurred. Only 27 Palestinian children deaths were reported by AP
when actually 179 children died. While there were 22 times more
Palestinian children's deaths than Israeli children's deaths, the AP
reported 113 percent of Israeli children's deaths and 15 percent of
Palestinian children's deaths.
On February 29, 2004 AP widely reported that President Aristide was
ousted by Haitian rebels and that the United States provided an
escort to take him out of the country to a safe asylum. Within 24
hours an entirely different story emerged through independent radio.
Instead of the US being the supportive facilitator of Aristide's
safety, Pacifica Radio News reported that Aristide was actually
kidnapped by US forces. AP quickly changed their story. On March 1,
2004 an AP report by Deb Riechman said, "White House officials said
Aristide left willingly and that the United States aided his safe
departure. But in a telephone interview with the Associated Press,
Aristide said: "No. I was forced to leave."
The last AP report of Aristide's claiming that he had been kidnapped
by the US in a State Department coup was on June 27, 2004. Since then
there have been 60 news articles by AP including Aristide's name. Of
these stories none mentioned Aristide's claim that he was kidnapped
by the United States military. None mention the US backing of the
coup. AP's bias in favor of the State Department's version of the
Aristide's removal seems to be a deliberate case of AP-sanctioned
forgetting.
AP is a massive institutionalized bureaucracy that feeds news stories
to nearly every newspaper and radio/TV station in the United States.
They are so large that top-down control of single news stories is
practically impossible. However, research clearly indicates a
built-in bias favoring official US government positions. The American
people absorb these biases and make political decisions on skewed
understandings. Without media systems that provide fair, critical and
accurate reporting, democracy faces a dismal future.
Peter Phillips is a professor of sociology at Sonoma State University
and Director of Project Censored. University research interns Sarah
Randle, Brian Fuchs, Zoe Huffman, and Fabrice Romero assisted with
this report. The complete
The full AP bias study is available on-line at
http://www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/ap_bias.html
--
Peter Phillips Ph.D.
Professor Sociology/Director Project Censored
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
Office: 707-664-2588
www.projectcensored.org
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