Here is a question you can ask the Google AI: "Can the Associated Press editorialize?"And here is the answer you will get:
"No, the Associated Press (AP) strives for factual, nonpartisan reporting and prohibits its journalists from editorializing or expressing personal opinions in their news coverage; their core mission is to provide objective news, but they face scrutiny and debate over potential biases, requiring consumers and member editors to remain vigilant for bias and clearly identify third-party contributions."
That's some remarkably unintelligent artificial intelligence.
Well, it sure seems like the AP violated its own alleged prohibition of editorializing with their Saturday story about the arrest of the J6 pipe bomber suspect by Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker, "Trump administration plays up pipe bomb suspect’s arrest. Jan. 6 violence goes unmentioned."
While the title itself sounds suspiciously biased the article text itself comes off as an extended editorial:
WASHINGTON (AP) — After the arrest of a man charged with placing two pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national parties on Jan. 5, 2021, the warning from the Trump administration was clear: If you come to the nation’s capital to attack citizens and institutions of democracy, you will be held accountable.
Yet Justice Department leaders who announced the arrest were silent about the violence that had taken place when supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol and clashed with police one day after those bombs were placed.
It was the latest example of the Trump’s administration’s efforts to rewrite the history of the riot, through pardons and the firings of lawyers who prosecuted the participants of the siege, and of the disconnect for a government that prides itself for cracking down on violent crime and supporting law enforcement but has papered over the brutality of the Jan. 6 attacks on police officers.
“The administration has ignored and attempted to whitewash the violence committed by rioters on Jan. 6 because they were the president’s supporters. They were trying to install him a second time against the will of the voters in 2020,” said Michael Romano, who prosecuted the rioters before leaving the Justice Department this year. “And it feels like the effort to ignore that is purely transactional.”
So in the first four paragraphs of the story supposedly about the arrest of the suspected pipe bomber, the AP reporters angrily editorialized that the Justice Department neglected to talk about the J6 violence by "supporters of President Donald Trump," and that the Trump administration was attempting to "rewrite the history of the riot" by "papering over the brutality of the Jan. 6 attacks on police officers." The icing on the TDS cake was quoting an obviously anti-Trump Justice Department prosecutor who left the DOJ this year.
As could almost be expected the AP editorialists painted the suspect, Brian Cole, as a Trump supporter based on, get this, anonymous sources.
People familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that among the statements Cole made to investigators is that he believed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, which Trump has insisted was stolen from him in favor of Democrat Joe Biden. The people were not authorized to discuss ongoing investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The rest of the AP story/editorial continues in this vein revealing a couple of very very angry AP editorialists posing as reporters letting off anti-Trump steam in the form of their highly biased report/editorial.
