Reference: https://nypost.com/2020/10/06/the-associated-press-advises-suppressing-the-truth-about-riots/
George Orwell would be proud of the new guidance in the Associated Press Stylebook, which proclaims that using the term “riot” to describe a riot “stigmatiz[es] broad swaths of people protesting against lynching, police brutality or for racial justice”.
The guidance claims that “[f]ocusing on rioting and property destruction rather than underlying grievance has been used in the past to stigmatize broad swaths of people protesting against lynching, police brutality or for racial justice, going back to the urban uprisings of the 1960s.” The AP says “riots” should be replaced with milder terms such as “unrest.”
OK, so if there is some sort of underlying grievance (which likely isn’t hard to claim in just about any situation, even if someone is just grieved because, say, it’s raining), then by definition there can be no “riot” when mobs of violent protestors decide to loot and destroy dozens of small businesses and the police cannot control it. There can only be a “riot” when mobs of violent protestors decide to loot and destroy dozens of small businesses and the police cannot control it when the mob is doing it just for the sheer hell of it with no underlying grievance at all.
This is reporting? No, it is more of the culture of ignorance. The AP should be ashamed of itself for this type of pandering to the antifa/woke/BLM nonsense filling the streets of Portland and other cities. It’s a sad day when one of the most (formerly) respected and influential news operations in the world decides to engage in this type of stifling prior restraint on the First Amendment freedom of the media.
If there was any question that the media in general is in the pocket of the leftist woke mob (which of course there isn’t), this redefinition proves it. Read Orwell’s book 1984 and how his Ministry of Truth operates, concealing reality underneath “newspeak” and “doublethink”, and you’ll get an idea of where this is heading, and it ain’t pleasant.