The AP tweet promoting the August 23 story read: “BREAKING: AP analysis: More than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money to Clinton Foundation.”
The article behind the post is based on a review of Clinton’s meeting schedule at the time of her service at the State Department. The investigation documented that 85 of 154 people representing non-government private interest groups who met with Clinton donated a cumulative $156 million to the Clinton Foundation.
CNN's Reliable Sources program, aimed at examining media coverage, called the AP article a "flaw." Program host Brian Stelter asked, "Why [did] the AP publish the story at all? Did they just want to show that they had found something, even if it didn't amount to much?"
After that CNN's Dylan Byers wrote a piece headlined, "Associated Press botches Hillary report and response," which stated that "other news organizations pilloried the AP's report," adding that the so-called revelations were "deemed less extraordinary by other journalists and pundits."
Responding to criticism, AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll said that the report was based on official documents and contains no lies, though admitting that the tweet for the piece was “sloppy.” The AP tweet failed to mention that the spotlighted Clinton meetings were those of discretionary nature, with people who do not represent the US federal government or the government of any other sovereign nation.
On Thursday, John Daniszewsk, AP’s vice president for standards, wrote in a blog post that the tweet had been deleted, as it had “fallen short of AP standards by omitting essential context.”
Daniszewsk remarked that AP is changing its Twitter guidelines, to avoid “AP tweets found not to meet AP standards, including tweets that contain information that is incorrect, misleading, unclear or could be interpreted as unfair, or having a problem in tone.”
The Clinton story remained in place, and AP retweeted to promote it: “AP review: Many of the discretionary meetings Clinton had at State were with people who gave to Clinton Foundation.”
AP review: Many of the discretionary meetings Clinton had at State were with people who gave to Clinton Foundation. https://t.co/ih6Oitgou2
— The Associated Press (@AP) 8 сентября 2016 г.
