AP’s ‘Palestine’ error appeared in an education story about a challenge from American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee to California legislation to protect Jewish students from antisemitism (Illustrative image from Eldarion_Gil/Pixabay)
CAMERA’s Israel office today prompted an Associated Press correction which reached dozens of secondary media outlets after the wire service erroneously referred to “Palestine” as a present-day entity (“California law to protect Jewish students faces challenge over free speech concern“).
The article had stated: “Parents who are part of the lawsuit say they fear their children will be prevented from learning about differing perspectives on Israel, Palestine and the Middle East.” [Emphasis added.]
References to the West Bank or the Gaza Strip as “Palestine” are inconsistent with AP usage. The AP commendably updated the article, replacing the misleading reference to Palestine with the word Palestinians. AP has previously commendably corrected this identical point in 2019 and 2016.
Underscoring the widespread impact of timely wire service corrections prompted by CAMERA, the corrected copy was republished at numerous media outlets including The Washington Post, Independent, ABC, Lakeland Today (Florida), Yahoo, US News & World Report, St. Albert Gazette (Alberta), Winnipeg Free Press, CT Insider, CityNews Halifax, WTOP News, San Francisco Chronicle, Times Union (New York), Seattle Times, Houston Chronicle, KVUE (AP Austin), San Antonio Express-News, Canadian Press News, Newsday, Las Vegas Sun, WHAS11 (Kentucky), Toronto Star, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, KENS-TV (Texas), KING5 News (Washington), KTVB (Idaho), WBNS (Ohio), WKYC (Ohio), Lufkin Daily Times (Texas), Batesville Daily Guard (Arizona) and Killeen Daily News (Texas), among others.