Kenya massacre: AP policy to bury lede?

Monday, July 2, 2012
GetReligion

Day after day, your GetReligionistas receive emails from readers that say something like this: “Please look at the following. Why do you think that (name of mainstream news organization) chose to (leave out or butcher a crucial fact) when covering this story? Is there something (some kind of politically correct policy) that requires them to do this?”

In other words, people who have not worked in mainstream newsrooms have a tendency to assume (a) that the patterns they keep seeing are intentional and (b) that biases have actually been molded into written policies that, in effect, have become part of newsroom manuals of style.

Some of these complaints, however, come from readers who have mainstream experience or who remain in mainstream posts (and wish to remain anonymous).

It’s hard to know how to answer these readers. the rest