Did the Associated Press (AP) become a little too hasty with their “fact checks”? Could be since they seem to relish any opportunity to bolster their dear friend Joe Biden. However, they’ve been curiously mum about their own screw-up on a story about a so-called bird flu death, which turned out to be, wait for it…fake news.
The story penned by AP’s Lauran Neergsard on Wednesday was all about a Mexican man’s death from an unprecedented strain of bird flu, H5N2, as per the World Health Organization (WHO). The details on how this man got infected were shady, although it was mentioned that H5N2 has been detected before in Mexican poultry.
There’s more to the story when you scratch the surface. Turns out the man had a whole buffet of “underlying ailments,” – chronic kidney failure, diabetes, and high blood pressure – right before developing signs that resemble bird flu. It makes you wonder if calling this a bird flu death right off the bat was a tad premature and sensational, doesn’t it?
And sure enough, couple of days later, Reuters rained on the AP’s parade, reporting that the man’s demise was chalked up to chronic disease rather than the bird flu. The Mexican health ministry reiterated on Friday that the man’s underlying chronic conditions led to septic shock and eventual death, not the bird flu virus.
WHO’s spokesperson, Christian Lindmeier, in a press conference last Friday in Geneva, called it a “multifactorial death,” adding that they’re still puzzled whether the infection came from another person or an animal contact. The health ministry, however, was categorical that there’s no evidence suggesting human-to-human transmission from this case.
So, AP and WHO seem to have prematurely set off the alarm about a bird flu death, and yet we’re still awaiting their retraction or correction. Just a tad hypocritical, isn’t it? After their zeal in issuing “fact checks” when it says something nice about Biden, you’d expect them to do the same when they goof up.
We’ve seen what WHO did during the COVID pandemic. Being skeptical about their hunt for new pandemics is only natural. But, AP seems to have gotten a little cozy with global bureaucracies and their narrations. Who fact checks the “fact checkers” guys? Or do they simply get a pass for a chance to promote fear on a global scale? Here’s hoping AP steps up and owns their mistake, because we, the public, deserve accurate, reliable, and accountable reporting.
