It seems that the Associated Press has gotten into a rut again. Last month I wrote a critique of an AP fact-checker who clearly didn’t check her facts. Numerous factual errors were made in this article. The central predicate error that remains uncorrected is one example. Who reviews AP fact-checkers’ work? We don’t know. Today’s edition of AP word manipulation can be found here.
This is the leade:
Prosecutors in Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial may have lost their best chance at convicting the Illinois man of something when the judge threw out a charge that Rittenhouse was a minor in possession of a dangerous weapon.
Judge Schroeder didn’t “throw out” the charge. Because the statute didn’t fit the charge, he dismissed it. Because the statute requires that the barrel of a firearm be less than 16 inches, defense filed a motion for dismissal. Rittenhouse’s rifle had a barrel that was more than 16 inches. The ratio of two to two equals four. The prosecution didn’t argue that the barrel was longer than 16 inches, they simply whined.
Judge Schroeder wanted to know if the prosecution had evidence the barrel was less than 16 inches. They answered “No.” The “gun charge” never had a chance of surviving. It would have been thrown out on appeal, even if it had been convicted by the jury. In short, it wasn’t the prosecution’s best chance of conviction – it was in fact its worst.
Yesterday’s article on November 18Th , explains how Rittenhouse shot two men, and wounded another “during police brutality protests.” Not once does it acknowledge that the city was set aflame by rioters or that the total in property damage for several nights of rioting cost over $50,000,000. Not once was the word “riot” used in the article. And, like most of AP’s reporting on the Kenosha “protests” over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, the fact that Blake admitted he was armed with a knife, and the police officer who shot him was cleared of wrong-doing — those predicate facts are left on the cutting room floor.
Inconvenient facts.
Rittenhouse, a child rapist convicted of rape and two men with lengthy criminal records, defends himself.
Meh, facts.
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