FIRED PRO-PALESTINIAN JOURNALIST OVER HAVING CLEAR ‘BIAS’ IN ‘DIVISIVE’ TOPIC, AP SAYS

Mon 31 May 2021:

In an interview to the CNN, the managing editor of the Associated Press (AP) news agency, Brian Carovillano, clarified that journalist Emily Wilder was fired by AP over showing a bias in “one of the most divisive and difficult stories” the agency covers.

The AP abruptly fired Wilder only two weeks after she joined the news agency in early May over what the agency called was a social media policy violation. The decision was prompted by the resurfacing of Wilder’s old tweets featuring pro-Palestinian views and activism while in university. The issue sparked a backlash among AP staffers who penned an open letter, saying Wilder’s firing was mishandled and demanding “more clarity” about the reasons.

“Emily Wilder was let go because she had a series of social media posts that showed a clear bias toward one side and against another in one of the most divisive and difficult stories we cover. It was a difficult decision; it was not an easy decision, and it was not a personal decision, and we wish her all the best,” Carovillano said as broadcast by CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”

According to the editor, Wilder’s old tweets could have put the agency’s journalists reporting from inside the war zone in danger.

“Journalists’ safety is at stake and the AP’s credibility is at stake. Our credibility is constantly under attack. Our social media guidelines exist to protect that credibility, because protecting our credibility is the same as protecting journalists,” he stated.

On 20th May, the AP fired Wilder, 22, for “violating” its social media rules which compel staff members not to express opinions on controversial issues for fear of damaging the news service’s reputation for objectivity and jeopardising its many reporters around the world.

On Monday, more than 100 Associated Press reporters signed an open letter protesting Wilder’s dismissal after her tweets about past college activism surfaced.

“Journalists demand transparency from the subjects of our reporting and seek to hold the powerful accountable,” the letter stated.

“That’s why we strongly disapprove of the way the AP has handled the firing of Emily Wilder and its days long silence internally. We demand more clarity from the company about why Wilder was fired,” it added.

In 2017, Wilder who worked for Students for Justice in Palestine as a student at Stanford University, helped organise a protest against Birthright Israel, a group that funds trips to Israel for young people of Jewish heritage.

In a Facebook post promoting the protest, Wilder wrote that the event would coincide with a “fundraising gala with far-right, pro-Trump, naked mole rat-looking billionaire Shel Adelson”.

More recently, Wilder criticised media coverage of Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah. “‘Objectivity’ feels fickle when the basic terms we use to report news implicitly stake a claim,” she wrote on Twitter. “Using ‘israel’ but never ‘palestine,’ or ‘war’ but not ‘siege and occupation’ are political choices — yet media make those exact choices all the time without being flagged as biased.”

“objectivity” feels fickle when the basic terms we use to report news implicitly stake a claim. using “israel” but never “palestine,” or “war” but not “siege and occupation” are political choices—yet media make those exact choices all the time without being flagged as biased

— emily wilder (@vv1lder) May 16, 2021