Opinion
The Associated Press is doing its best to convince readers that the barbaric act of “scalping” is a product of “white colonists.”
The AP was widely panned for an article published on Wednesday that claimed that the resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay was a result of conservatives weaponizing plagiarism.
In reality, Gay was ousted because of her tolerance for anti-Semitic protests on campus which eventually morphed into dozens of allegations of her lifting work from her colleagues without attribution.
Somehow, the Associated Press decided complaints of plagiarism are weapons, not the act of plagiarizing itself. Akin to complaining about crime in your area – the complaints are “weapons,” but the actual crimes, let’s not talk about those.
“Harvard president’s resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism,” the original headline reads.
After admitting the story “doesn’t meet our standards,” the headline was changed to – “Plagiarism charges downed Harvard’s president. A conservative attack helped to fan the outrage” – which is essentially the same thing.
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Associated Press Quietly Edits Their Description Of Scalping
In that same article, the Associated Press laughably described the term “scalping” as if it was invented, or at least was an action used predominantly, by “white colonists.”
The commentary was in reference to political activist Christopher Rufo, who wrote “scalped” on social media after Gay announced her resignation.
“On X, formerly Twitter, he wrote ‘SCALPED,’ as if Gay was a trophy of violence, invoking a gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who sought to eradicate Native Americans,” the outlet wrote.
Which is a complete rewrite of the history of the Americas, but aside from that, they nailed it.
After being thoroughly ridiculed online for their explanation of scalping, the Associated Press quietly edited the statement, and it isn’t much better.
In fact, all they did was add the phrase “and also used by some tribes against their enemies” to the end of their original statement.
It still glosses over the fact that scalping in the Americas predominantly arose from the practices of Native American tribes, and was later copied by European colonists on the continent.
The Associated Press attempted to portray it as having been invented by colonists, and when that didn’t work, they edited it to make it appear as if colonists were the main practitioners while “some tribes” also used the technique sparingly.
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More Edits On The Article
The Associated Press also updated the article’s content to better reflect the complexities of the situation. For example, they included more context on the controversy surrounding Gay’s resignation and the accusations of plagiarism against her.
The original lede paragraph stated: “The downfall of Harvard’s president has elevated the threat of unearthing plagiarism, a cardinal sin in academia, as a possible new weapon in conservative attacks on higher education.”
It now reads: “American higher education has long viewed plagiarism as a cardinal sin. Accusations of academic dishonesty have ruined the careers of faculty and undergraduates alike.”
In 2021, the Associated Press received backlash when CEO Daisy Veerasingham tattled on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s press secretary, saying that she engaged in “harassing behavior” toward one of their reporters.
DeSantis replied by advising the AP not to publish “false narrative(s).”
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