In journalism, the Associated Press and the AP Stylebook are used to determine proper terminology and standards in reporting. Media conglomerates also partner with the AP to share their work. The AP, however, edited a recent headline and report, admitting they were incorrect and saying their story “didn’t meet their own standards.”
The original version of the article was titled “Harvard president’s resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism,” referencing the resignation of Harvard President Dr. Claudine Gay.
The headline, along with some of the sentences within the article’s body, have since been edited after the AP received backlash over calling “plagiarism” a “new conservative weapon.”
The new headline removes the word “weapon,” but keeps the premise that a “conservative attack” helped to fan “outrage” over alleged plagiarism in Gay’s scholarly work.
Harvard’s former President Claudine Gay resigned following Congressional testimony about antisemitism on the campus and plagiarism accusations related to Gay’s scholarship.
A conservative news outlet, The Washington Free Beacon, was the first to report dozens of “long stretches” in Gay’s published works that duplicated other works. A Harvard committee confirmed the accusations.
Users on X, formerly Twitter, took issue with the way AP characterized the president’s resignation and capitalized on a conservative effort to have her removed.
A “Community Note” label was added to AP’s post on X sharing the article, allowing users to offer context to the post. Readers added context, saying:
- “Plagiarism is a breach of rules for Harvard University.”
- “There were a ‘series of breaches.’”
- Plagiarism “cannot be considered a weapon.”
“They buried the lede,” a Washington Post columnist said. “The GOP stole this weapon from colleges, which for years punished people for plagiarism with little to no input from conservatives.”
“It’s remarkable that conservatives with, with all the pouncing and seizing they do, had the time to invent the concept of plagiarism over the last couple of months,” CNN Political Commentator Scott Jennings posted on X.
Portions in the body of the article were changed in an attempt to remove bias.
The Associated Press highlighted a conservative activist’s post on X that used the phrase “scalped” referring to Gay’s removal, saying the user was acting “as if Gay was a trophy of violence, invoking a gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who sought to eradicate Native Americans.”
The AP later added in context that it wasn’t only used by white colonists.
In recent years, Stanford University and the University of South Carolina changed leadership due to plagiarism allegations. According to the AP’s report, this leadership change is different, as Claudine Gay was Harvard’s first Black president.
In the article, the AP cited Walter Kimbrough — a former president at a historically Black college — who said, “As a Black person in academia, you always have to be twice, three times as good.”
The Associated Press still sets the standard for journalists across the country. According to AllSides, which provides media bias ratings for over 1,400 media outlets, Associated Press reporting displays left-leaning bias.
