The AP Stylebook had been for decades the gold standard in setting up the basic rules of the road for journalists. This by itself wasn’t a bad thing. AP built a reputation for fairness and objectivity rarely matched by other media organizations. It leveraged that reputation with a guide that set the bar for professional standards in language and style.
The emphasis was on good grammar and clarity, certainly worthwhile goals.
What’s happened to AP in the last decade, though, is a tale that’s been repeated in elite institution after elite institution. The highest standards of objectivity were flushed down the drain to promote culturally left-wing points of view and foist them on the rest of society. It used its institutional capital to leverage culture war aims to the maximum extent.
AP hasn’t always been blatant with how it used this power, but the pattern and increasing bias in the AP Stylebook has been impossible to miss for those paying attention.
Axios recently listed some of “MAGA’s” problems with AP. Funny how Axios framed the report as if only Trump supporters have issues with these changes, but their list wasn’t bad.
Axios noted that AP essentially picked a side in the debate over transgenderism to avoid “false balance”—oops, according to AP I’m not supposed to use the word “transgenderism” because it “frames transgender identity as an ideology.”