The Associated Press is having a bad day. The AP was hit with Community Notes for its headline about the resignation of serial plagiarist Claudine Gay from her position as president of Harvard. "Harvard president's resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism," read the headline. Word must have gotten back to the AP, which gave the headline a makeover: "Plagiarism charges downed Harvard’s president. A conservative attack helped to fan the outrage," was their second attempt.
As always, the AP made the story about conservatives' reactions to a story, not the story itself. Christopher Rufo, who helped publicize nearly 50 instances of plagiarism from Gay, tweeted this:
SCAPLED: Harvard president Claudine Gay resigns. pic.twitter.com/Pnh0Gth0AS
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) January 2, 2024
*first tweet should read SCALPED
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) January 2, 2024
OK, so there was a typo. But the AP pounced on Rufo's tweet, reporting that he'd invoked "a gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who sought to eradicate Native Americans."
You’d think nothing in the article could top the headline, but then you see @AP’s definition of scalping. https://t.co/BaC9cJaBjs pic.twitter.com/WORZ2IqISp
— John McCormack (@McCormackJohn) January 3, 2024
Um, wasn't it the other way around, chief? Wasn't Rufo culturally appropriating from Native Americans?
The AP stealth-edits story to note that Native American tribes used scalping against each other rather than just being a "gruesome practice taken up by white colonists" against Native Americans as the original article stated.https://t.co/RvFlnSxYVF https://t.co/6vQMlWlsF7 pic.twitter.com/47C6jocT28
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) January 3, 2024
Here's what the AP has settled on as of now:
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Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who helped orchestrate the effort against Gay, celebrated her departure as a win in his campaign against elite institutions of higher education. 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 and also used by some tribes against their enemies.
Oh, some tribes scaled their enemies. It wasn't just white colonists. In any case, Rufo treated Gay's resignation as "a trophy of violence."
Check back later after the AP stealth-edits its preposterous story again.
There was a time when stealth editing a piece in journalism was cardinal sin, bottom of the barrel stuff. Amazing to see the AP has sunk so low.
— Russ Read (@RussCanRead) January 3, 2024
Yet again, the legacy media could avoid this stuff if they'd stop putting what they WANT to be true, ahead of what IS true.
— David X. Henry (@imau2fan) January 3, 2024
They conveniently leave out that Native Americans scalped colonists, too.
— ⚔️Princess Cutabitch™️⚔️ 🏴 🇺🇸 # (@PCutabitch) January 3, 2024
It would be better to just remove the whole contextualizing scalping rather than trying to fix it.
— mitrebox (@mitrebox) January 3, 2024
It would have been best to just report the facts about Gay's resignation, instead of trying to frame Rufo as the villain.
Stealth editing is one of the worst possible breaches of journalistic ethics, yet one that is ubiquitous through the entire industry and never gets any pushback from journalists.
— The Only Gary Johnson Stan (@colorblindk1d) January 3, 2024
AP: White colonists guilty of appropriating scalping from Native Americans.
— Geoff Walker (@gewa76) January 3, 2024
"And also." Tell me, @AP, from where might "white colonists" have "taken up" this practice?
— John Keck (@loneloc02) January 3, 2024
We really need to address how the practice of retroactive stealth editing is rendering articles completely unusable as primary sources in academic papers.
— Henry (@_HMSP) January 3, 2024
Previously, you could use newspaper articles as a source for “Here’s what people thought at the time.”
Not anymore.
AP = Agenda Pushers
— SEIOPEK BEIKANEE (@wrighttd) January 3, 2024
Scalping comes from Native Americans. Native Americans scalped white colonists as well as each other. They're trying so hard to make Rufo the bad guy for claiming another scalp. Gay was an academic fraud who never should have been made president of Harvard — that's the story the AP could have been reporting all along, rather than letting "conservatives" do the legwork and post their reporting on X.
It's glorious: Academics defending plagiarism. Journalists opposing journalism. Newswires attributing scalping to "white colonists." Everyone focusing on the frame we set. That is how the game is won.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) January 3, 2024
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