Bradley Klapper

Unreal: Language in Offensive AP Tweet on Israel-Gaza-Congress Led Its Actual Story Early Tuesday
By Tom Blumer | July 29, 2014 | 10:14 PM EDT

Earlier today, I gave the Associated Press an unwarranted benefit of the doubt. I figured that there was no way the language contained in an offensive AP tweet on the Israel-Gaza situation would appear in an actual story by an alleged professional journalist. Boy, was I wrong.

The language in question was posted at 6 a.m. ET and is still present at the wire service's official Twitter account. It reads: "As much of world watches Gaza war in horror, members of Congress fall over each other to support Israel." I wrote this afternoon that "The tweet ... links to a brief dispatch by Bradley Klapper, whose coverage, to be fair (but only if he's not the tweeter), doesn't reflect the sentiments expressed in the tweet." Well, it didn't then, because the underlying story had been revised. Here's are the first five paragraphs of Klapper's story as they appeared before comprehensive cleanup efforts ensued:

Official AP Tweet: Despite Gaza 'Horror,' U.S. Lawmakers 'Fall Over Each Other to Support Israel'
By Tom Blumer | July 29, 2014 | 12:30 PM EDT

UPDATE, 11 p.m.: See this new post: "Unreal: Language in Offensive AP Tweet on Israel-Gaza-Congress Led Its Actual Story Early Tuesday"

It would appear that the Associated Press is branching out into new avenues of bias and submission.

Since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, its journalists have worked feverishly to earn the wire service its U.S.-based nickname as the Administration's Press. Now a still-present tweet early this morning (HT Twitchy) from AP's official Twitter account demonstrates a desire to be seen as Hamas's Press:

AP Pair Continues the 'No WMDs' Lie, Defines Anyone Who Doesn't Support Military Action in Iraq Now As a 'Dove'
By Tom Blumer | June 17, 2014 | 4:23 PM EDT

The Obama administration doesn't have a plan for dealing with the crisis in Iraq. The left apparently believes it's up to obviously out of power "neocons" to have a plan.

Though he has dispatched 275 military advisors to that country, his virtual ultimatum to that Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — no angel by any stretch, but still a better alternative to a civil war or an ISIS-run terrorist state — that he must negotiate with all parties involve before the U.S. will even think about making a meaningful military commitment seems destined to allow matters to deteriorate further, perhaps to the point of no return. Despite all of this, Donna Cassata and Bradley Klapper at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, implied in a Tuesday afternoon dispatch that anyone who doesn't support plan-free military action now is some kind of hypocrite — except for Democrats who say that their support of going to war in 2002 was a mistake. The AP pair also falsely asserted that weapons of mass destruction "were never found" in Iraq.

AP's Klapper Ignores His Own Oct. 2012 Stories in Painting Benghazi Panel As Purely Election-Driven
By Tom Blumer | May 20, 2014 | 3:09 PM EDT

If there was ever drop-dead obvious proof that it's more than fair to call the Associated Press the Administration's Press, it's in the opening phrase of the first sentence of the wire service's Monday morning report on the House's select committee on Benghazi: "Republicans hoping to ride their Benghazi investigation to a November election sweep ..." As far as reporters Donna Cassata and Bradley Klapper are concerned, there can't possibly be any other motivation for holding the hearings.

Cassata and Klapper's agenda-driven drivel makes several trips into the land of "Republicans say," when the correct words should be: "The facts are." More crucially, Klapper completely ignored two reports he filed on October 10, 2012 which showed that the State Department "never believed" that the murder of Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in the Benghazi attack was inspired by an anti-Muslim video (bolds numbered tags are mine throughout this post):

After Years of Conflicted Reporting, AP Reporter Claims North Korea 'Already Has a Nuclear Weapons Arsenal'
By Tom Blumer | December 13, 2012 | 12:47 PM EST

The word games in the press, especially at the Associated Press, concerning North Korea's nuclear capabilities are head-spinning.

In a June 16, 2009 dispatch, Ben Feller's story at the AP carried the following headline at the Huffington Post: "Obama, Lee: We Won't Allow North Korea To Have Nuclear Weapons" ("Lee" is Lee Myung-bak, then and still President of South Korea). Yet Feller's first paragraph referred to the North as a "nuclear-armed nation." If you're "armed," doesn't that mean you have a "weapon"? Additionally, a CNN report on the same day mentioned that President Obama would not be "allowing North Korea to develop nuclear weapons," though the country has claimed possession of them since early 2005. An exercise in excuse-making at the AP Wednesday evening by Bradley Klapper only adds to the confusion (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Five Days After Morsi's Virtually Absolute Power Grab, AP Pair Writes That Egypt Is 'Moving to a More Democratic Government'
By Tom Blumer | November 29, 2012 | 8:44 AM EST

In a Tuesday evening dispatch at the Associated Press (saved here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) on the status of U.S. foreign policy in Egypt, Bradley Klapper and Julie Pace either displayed an amazing level of clairvoyance or indulged in a level of fantasy ordinarily reserved for trips to Disneyland. I'm betting that it's the latter, that this AP report will in short order come to be seen as a complete journalistic embarrassment, and that the Obama administration is drinking from the same koolaid jug.

The good news is that they at least finally acknowledged a linkage that most of the rest of the establishment press has studiously ignored, namely that "After winning U.S. and worldwide praise (for brokering an Israel-Hamas ceasefire), Morsi immediately cashed in on his new political capital by seizing more power at home." But it's all downhill from there (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

AP Reports Still Fixate on 'Anti-Islam Video,' Leave Impression That There Were Pre-Attack Protests in Benghazi
By Tom Blumer | October 11, 2012 | 9:20 AM EDT

The Associated Press, after an initial acknowledgment in a Tuesday evening timeline from Bradley Klapper, has consistently failed in several subsequent reports to cite State Department officials' unmistakable assertion that there were no protests whatsoever at the Benghazi, Libya U.S. consulate on September 11 before the lethal terrorist attack which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Instead, later reports create the impression that protests did occur.

It's even getting carried into coverage of different events. In his story (link is to early paragraphs of original version) about the Thursday morning murder of a security official at the U.S. embassy in Yemen, the AP's Ahmed Al Haj (identified as the reporter in the item I originally saw, since revised) betrayed the wire service's uninterrupted obsession with "an anti-Islam video," and wrote as if nothing learned in the past two days has any validity (bolds are mine throughout this post):

AP Slaps Boring Headline on Story Regarding Major Admission by State Dept. on Benghazi Consulate Attack
By Tom Blumer | October 10, 2012 | 9:55 AM EDT

The headline writers for Bradley Klapper's story early Wednesday at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, about the September 11 attack which destroyed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya and killed four Americans, including Libyan ambassador Christopher Stevens, had a real problem on their hands: How do we make our headline so boring that people who see it won't feel like clicking over to the story itself (or, if they're reading a newspaper, not moving on to it)? Their answer, which was pretty effective given their apparent goal: "State Dept reveals new details of Benghazi attack."

Zzz ... zzz ... Oh, excuse me, I needed a second cup of coffee to get past that snooze of a headline. Klapper's story wasn't any better, as he atrociously buried the lede -- that there never was a protest over the 14-minute anti-Mohammed video before the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya took place -- and was incredibly vague in his reference to this breathtaking story change when he finally did bring it forth (bolds are mine throughout this post):