When did AP start trying cases?

"In your world, maybe" is really, really tame.

 

You're right. It was tame. But, as proven in the next few posts, it was an unprovoked shot -- one with history behind it and delivered, as you yourself said, as an insult.
Because you disagree on a point (past history aside) doesn't mean you have to shred someone the first time every time.
Yeah, I'll give you occasionally. Not always.

You can deliver the solution without blurring the message every time

 

Already asked and answered. The people who don't want to get shredded should either (1) Grow some nuts; (2) Don't say stupid shit; (3) Don't go around stirring the shit.

The fucktards who go around hinting for a fight with gutless questions are eventually going to get that fight.

 

You're right again. But you dont have to always start the fight; you don't always have to answer the bell.
You don't have to prove anything to anyone by always jumping in and shredding someone for saying what you observe as stupid shit, especially when it isnt always directed toward you.

 

A good point, and since the back-and-forth here has served its purpose, I'm done.

 

Agreed... just trying to help soothe an edgy night

 

On the original question: the AP tries cases all the time.

Jay Nordlinger regularly discusses hilariously subjective wire-service language - often from leads, no less - in his online National Review column.

I'm no staunch conservative, but Nordlinger's almost always right on these...and the problem he points out is often, again, the absence of attribution.

 

That's classic! (Or, should I say, classical?)

Don't forget vocative.

 

At this risk of DyePack's wrath, and an accusation that I don't know anything about basic journalism:

I know what we've always been taught. But can the case not be made that if you establish in the first few paragraphs -- and here, it was done several times -- that the information being provided is coming from police and a report, that you don't have to keep citing it over and over?

Is any typical reader going to go through those last three paragraphs and think that the source of the information all of the sudden went from the police report to something else, like the AP writer?

I think sometimes only people in our business notice such things.

Extra attribution doesn't hurt, of course. But you're not going to get sued over this -- preventing that is one reason for repeated attribution -- and the readers aren't going to be misled, so I don't know -- gasp! -- what the big deal is.

 

Oh, fili mi! I forgot that one.

 

But wait ... shouldn't that be "O, ... "?? Doesn't the O (without the "h") signify addressing someone? I forget.

 

It has nothing to do with preventing a lawsuit. It's about being fair. It's about realizing that the police don't always tell the absolute truth in their reports. And even when they believe they are telling the truth, that's not always the case.

The sad reality of our business is that crime stories typically are stilted to start with because the accused rarely want to give their sides of the story (usually on the advice of counsel). So you have the police building their case through the media, and the accused having to wait until trial to tell his side of the story.

Taking that a step further by printing definitive statements -- without any attribution -- just makes these stories even more stilted.