New AP Stylebook change triggers warning

The Associated Press Stylebook -- launched when the delivery of news was measured in days or even weeks -- has a new guideline for writers that is triggering a warning for its lack of neutrality.

It advises writers to "call out racism" by deciding for themselves what is racist and labeling it as such.

That, according to Brian Ericson, writing at the Washington Examiner, is "leading to disaster."

He said the AP's move might sound reasonable, but "several media outlets just proved it's the start of a troubling trend in journalism."

"Do not use racially charged or similar terms as euphemisms for racist or racism when the latter terms are truly applicable," the news wire said. "If racist is not the appropriate term, give careful thought to how best to describe the situation. Alternatives include racially divisive, racially sensitive, or in some cases, simply racial."

Do not use racially charged or similar terms as euphemisms for racist or racism when the latter terms are truly applicable. #ACES2019 #ACESAPstyle

— AP Stylebook (@APStylebook) March 29, 2019

Ericson pointed out that such characterizations simply are not always clear-cut.

Ericson wrote that CNN is following the AP's advice, "denouncing President Trump's recent string of tweets targeting four freshman congresswomen as 'racist' — in their news reporting, not their commentary."

"One CNN article, written by a breaking news reporter, says that 'President Donald Trump used racist language on Sunday to attack progressive Democratic congresswomen,'" he wrote.

"While Trump’s tweets certainly allude to race and could undoubtedly be described as 'racially divisive,' whether or not they're racist should be up to readers and commentators to decide, not ostensibly objective reporters. In fact, much of the political universe has been debating whether the tweets were racist or not for days, so it's clearly not an objective fact for a reporter to state as a given.

"If reporters now have the ability to use the term 'racist' at their discretion, what's to stop them from applying it to whomever or whatever they see fit? Who exactly determines when these terms might be 'truly applicable,' as the new AP guidelines suggests?" he wrote.

The move, he explained, "just increases opportunities for bias."

"What if a politician sponsors a piece of legislation that, for example, seeks to curb affirmative action? Biased reporters or editors might lump the two into the same category of 'racist,' and under the AP’s new guidelines, they’d be within their right to do so," he warned.

It's not the first time AP has stirred controversy through changes in its guidelines.

In 2013, the organization pleased Muslim activists by banning "Islamist" as a synonym for "fighters" or "militants."

Politico's Dylan Byers said then that the change by AP was made "after much prodding from the Council on American-Islamic Relations."

"CAIR had complained late last year that the AP's old definition of 'Islamist' – 'a supporter of government in accord with the laws of Islam [and] who views the Quran as a political model' – had become a pejorative shorthand for extremist Muslims," Byers wrote.

The move followed by just days the AP's decision to redefine the American lexicon to discontinue references to "illegal immigrants."

That move widely drew guffaws, with "Tonight" show host Jay Leno joking that it was being replaced with "undocumented Democrat."

It was only two years ago that a Muslim who was born and raised in the Middle East compared the Associated Press Stylebook to the Quran.

"To be sure, the AP Stylebook does not carry the same weight or authority as the Quranic texts on which radical Islamists base their jihadist actions and totalitarian aims. It does constitute, however, a cultural decree that has turned religious in its fervor. It gives a glimpse, as well, into the intellectual tyranny that has pervaded liberal Western thought and institutions," wrote A.Z. Mohamed in a commentary published by the Gatestone Institute.

"The main facet of this PC tyranny, so perfectly predicted by Orwell, is the inversion of good and evil – of victim and victimizer. In such a universe, radical Muslims are victimized by the West, and not the other way around."

He said the attempt in the West "to impose a strict set of rules about what one is allowed to think and express in academia and in the media – to the point that anyone who disobeys is discredited, demonized, intimidated and in danger of losing his or her livelihood – is just as toxic and just as reminiscent of Orwell's view of a diseased society."

"These rules are not merely unspoken ones. Quoting a Fox News interview with American columnist Rachel Alexander, the Clarion Project points out that the Associated Press – whose Stylebook is used as a key reference by a majority of English-language newspapers worldwide for uniformity of grammar, punctuation and spelling – is now directing writers to avoid certain words and terms that are now deemed unacceptable to putative liberals."