In a tweet from the Associated Press (AP) on Thursday evening, the AP charged that American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) President Pamela Geller had “no regrets” about holding a Prophet Mohammad “cartoon contest” in Texas Sunday “that ended in 2 deaths” in the form of two Islamic extremists shot by security as they tried to carry out a terrorist attack.
Posted at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, the AP tweeted the following:
Pamela Geller says she has no regrets about Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest that ended in 2 deaths: http://t.co/3QabvaBs4w
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 8, 2015
Four minutes later, the AP’s Twitter account issued a similar tweet:
PHOTO: Pamela Geller at AP headquarters, where she said she had no regrets over TX cartoon contest that left 2 dead: http://t.co/cELdeaeqGd
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 8, 2015
Hours later at 10:13 p.m. Easter, the AP tried to backtrack by slightly altering the ending in a way that “clarifies earlier tweets”:
Geller says no regrets about Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest that ended in gunfire (clarifies earlier tweets): http://t.co/LLH0xJJD28
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 8, 2015
As Twitchy showed in a post late Thursday, the damage was done as reaction was swift as conservatives and even some in the mainstream media expressed their astonishment, anger, and confusion with some on Twitter starting the hashtag “#AssociatedPressHeadlines” to parody the tweets in question.
With these tweets in mind, one has to wonder: Would the AP have tweeted something like this out about, say, the United States military carrying out a drone strike on ISIS or a mission by SEAL Team 6 to kill a senior al-Qaeda leader?
