Is the Associated Press out of its closet of ethical journalism? A revealing story, suppressed by the mainstream media, shows it to be the case as the Associated Press has admitted to making up claims in targeting conservative Senate candidate Bernie Moreno.
Conservative news and commentary site Breitbart exclusively reported on March 16 that the Associated Press (AP) admitted that it has no “geolocation data to back up its smear piece about Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno” despite claiming to have the said data in two published stories. Breitbart cited Lauren Easton, the director of communications at AP, admitting to them that AP does not have the “geopolitical data” in question.
The Breitbart story reminded that AP had published two stories during the past week claiming that Trump-endorsed 2024 Senate candidate from Ohio Bernie Moreno created an account on Adult FriendFinder in 2008. Both AP stories claimed to have geolocation data proving that Moreno created the account on the adult dating site.
But when asked to provide the evidence of geolocation data, AP admitted to Breitbart that it did not have “anything more than what Adult Friend Finder based on what zip code was entered by whoever created the account.”
Despite this bombshell admission, as Breitbart reported, AP says it stands by its story and mainstream media has conveniently ignored it. However, conservatives took notice of AP’s confession and took to social media to slam the smear piece of AP against Moreno. Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell posted on Twitter/X that AP should be sued for knowingly publishing fake news.
Republican Senator from Ohio J.D. Vance called it a major scandal.
Associated Press lives with the infamous history of formally collaborating with the Hitler regime in Nazi Germany during World War II, as recapitulated by Erin Blakemore (April 2016) in Smithsonian Magazine. For a long time, AP was sold as an independent source at the center of the political spectrum. However, its left-leaning editorial policy increasingly came out of the veil over the past decade, particularly during the Trump administration. In October 2020, Jonathan S. Tobin wrote in the New York Post that the progressive bias of the Associated Press is out of control. Criticizing its “Orwellian newspeak,” Tobin wrote:
The AP Stylebook has become an eager recruit for left-wing Democratic activism and the anti-Trump “resistance.”
In its mission statement, the Associated Press writes on its website:
We have a long-standing role setting the industry standard for ethics in journalism. It is our job — more than ever before — to report the news accurately and honestly.
Now in making up claims in it stories about Bernie Moreno, the Associated Press has essentially given away its leftover claim to neutrality in favor of fake news journalism that characterizes many if not most of the liberal news outlets operational today – all serving the same leftist political agenda.