The Associated Press caught no shortage of well-deserved ridicule Thursday night after publishing what might be the most deceptively worded, propaganda-pushing headline in recent memory. Which, frankly, is saying something.
In a now-deleted tweet, the AP posted the claim, “JD Vance says school shootings are a ‘fact of life,’ calls for better security,” suggesting Donald Trump’s running mate shrugged off tragedies like the massacre at a local Georgia High School last Wednesday as an ordinary event.
Except that’s not actually what he said. Here's a clip with his actual, full statement:
🤥Harris Campaign selectively twists JD Vance’s words saying he called school shootings “a fact of life” and puts out a statement.
— Melissa Hallman (@dotconnectinga) September 6, 2024
The Associated Press wrote an article, then retracted it.
What JD Vance actually said:
“I don’t like this. I don’t like to admit this. I don’t… pic.twitter.com/cCdx0KQGNg
"I don’t like this. I don’t like to admit this. I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance told supporters during a campaign stop this week following the shooting at Apalachee High School.
“But if you are a psycho, and you wanna make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we’ve gotta bolster security at our schools. We've got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children, they're not able,” he went on, clearly emphasizing that school shootings should not be a commonplace occurrence and that this buildings should be hardened against dangerous criminals looking to murder innocent people - the exact opposite of what the AP’s headline suggested.
And make no mistake: they knew it.
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The AP eventually deleted their tweet and posted a new one, which read, “JD Vance says he laments that school shootings are a "fact of life" and says the U.S. needs to harden security to prevent more carnage like the shooting this week that left four dead in Georgia.” That post was followed up by another tweet that reads, “This post replaces an earlier post that was deleted to add context to the partial quote from Vance.”
But despite retracting the original, deceptive headline, the Harris/Walz campaign immediately seized on the false accusation, claiming in a campaign statement that Vance had shrugged off school shootings as normal things we’ll just have to get used to.
the Harris/Walz campaign seized on the false accusation, claiming in a campaign statement that Vance had shrugged off school shootings as normal things we’ll just have to get used to.
The lie quickly spread to other outlets that splattered similar headlines across the internet.
The Telegraph wrote, “School shootings are just a fact of life, says JD Vance.”
The New York Times did little better, publishing, “Vance Calls School Shootings a Grim ‘Fact of Life’ as He Backs Increased Security.”
NBC Today wrote that “JD Vance faces backlash for calling school shootings 'a fact of life,’” ignoring the backlash the AP faced for deceptively editing Vance’s full statement.
No matter how much you hate the media, it’s not nearly enough.
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— MRCTV (@mrctv) September 5, 2024