January the 9th, 2015
As a member of the Associated Press’ Stylebook Review Committee, Salem Radio Network VP/News and Programming, Tom Tradup, raised concerns this week over what he characterized as a “double standard” by AP when it elected to not distribute any Charlie Hebdo cartoons following the terrorist attacks in Paris, citing prior editorial policy.
Tradup said, “That all sounded fine until the Washington Examiner discovered that AP’s photo service was selling copies of the highly offensive Andres Serrano ‘artwork’ titled ‘Piss Christ’, featuring a crucifix dunked in a vial of Serrrano’s own urine.” Tradup fired off a letter to AP management asking why an apparent double standard applies when it comes to images that offend one religion but not to those that offend others.
AP issued a reply via its blog saying, “AP Images has an archive of 22 million photos, including AP pictures that predate our current editorial standards and pictures from many other photo partners. Sometimes photos that don’t meet our current editorial standards are found among those millions of pictures. Thus, on Wednesday (1/7) we removed some Charlie Hebdo cartoons that had come from a non-AP source.
We also became aware that a 25-year-old image of the controversial Piss Christ photo was among the photos there, and removed it. Of course, every removal is a judgment call, and we took some flak over the decision on Piss Christ.”
Read the AP’s full statement, Why AP Didn’t Run The Charlie Hebdo Cartoons, HERE.
