“Sublimating egos is part of the gig”
While dragging the AP’s Twitter account for false equivalency is pretty much an official light sport in media — as Mother Jones EIC Clara Jeffery did yesterday — but lest ye be misled, the Associated Press is still an international treasure, and Jeffery went on to clarify exactly why in this 30-tweet-long thread.
Anyone who’s ever worked with wire stories knows the way the AP essentially functions like a journalistic utilities provider, but Jeffery makes a stellar point in that most AP stringers and reporters out there — even the ones in war zones, even the ones in regional courthouses you never hear about — don’t even get bylined! “Sublimating egos is part of the gig” (tweet #9), she writes, and in an industry where it’s usually all about the ego, that’s not nothing.