The Associated Press ran a story about the passage of an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts on its wires this morning with the headline, “Bill preventing huge tax cuts heads to Obama Friday.”

What’s wrong with that?

The AP is a hugely influential news organization because it provides copy to news rooms all across the country. In this age of constantly shrinking news staffs, newspapers use the AP copy more than ever before. Language as obviously biased as this will quickly make its way into coverage of this story by almost every news outlet in the country. Think I’m exaggerating? Remember The Ground Zero Mosque?  

If you agree that the media needs to stay unbiased, think about writing to The AP at info@ap.org. Here’s what I sent them.

To Whom it May Concern:

As a journalist and subscriber to the online AP Style Book I was very disappointed to see today’s headline from The Associated Press on the passage of a bill to extend the Bush-era tax cuts by Congress. “Bill preventing huge tax hikes heads to Obama Friday” is a very biased way of reporting the news. In a time when many people simply scan headlines for their news, it’s irresponsible. We all know that this issue is a very divisive one pitting progressives against conservatives. By playing the story as being about the avoidance of tax hikes, AP is taking a very obvious stance on the issue. Instead a headline saying that “Congress sends tax bill to Obama Friday” would have been more accurate and more objective.
This gross example of bias is all the more disappointing coming so soon after the manufactured conflict over the “Ground Zero Mosque.” Thanks to the AP’s habit of referring to the Muslim cultural center being built two blocks away from Ground Zero as “The Ground Zero Mosque” in its headlines, almost the entire media establishment used that style. Unfortunately, that is obviously biased language created by conservative outlets in an effort to inflame public opinion. The AP is a hugely influential news organization. It is more so now than ever before as news rooms around the country continue to shrink, forcing them to rely on AP copy to fill their websites and newspapers. So why is the AP getting ever lazier and sloppier about it’s copy?
If one weren’t so sure that the AP is an unbiased news organization, one might start to think that there is a conservative conspiracy to control the media.
Histrionics aside, please take more time and care with your headlines. It’s a disservice to the nation when a news organization with as great a reach as The Associated Press gets lazy, succumbs to pressure to write for SEO and caves to the political winds of any one side of the debate.