New Associated Press Stylebook could “completely reform” how media covers criminal justice

On May 29, the Associated Press released The Associated Press Stylebook, 57th Edition, which includes guidance that is brand new, such as a full chapter on criminal justice.

According to the AP, “The new criminal justice chapter provides extensive guidance and best practices for covering public safety and criminal justice and emphasizes the need for accountability journalism, including looking for warning signs that might have been missed, law enforcement response, weapons issues, and what might be done to prevent similar crimes in the future.”

Most importantly, perhaps, the AP has adopted the “person-first” language recommendations that JustLeadershipUSA and other criminal justice reform organizations have been advocating for several years.

A decade from now, the American newsrooms still standing will have completely reformed how they cover public safety …

Kelly McBride, Senior Vice President and Chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at the Poynter Institute, writes, “Here’s a prediction: A decade from now, the American newsrooms still standing will have completely reformed how they cover public safety, replacing cheap stories about shootings and stabbings with data-rich narratives that educate communities and hold cops accountable. This includes local TV stations and lurid tabloids.”

McBride adds, “The changes to the AP Stylebook are significant because they embrace a philosophy that emerged in the wake of the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd. In the opening of the chapter, the AP lists several reasons for covering public safety … The chapter instructs journalists to be wary of police reports, especially early ones. And while it stops short of admonishing newsrooms for past behavior, it does say, ‘Accounts by police, especially in the hours just after a crime, are very incomplete and can be inaccurate, whether about specific details or about motivations behind the crime.’”

McBride goes on to conclude, “Because there won’t be a financial reward for doing the right thing, this change will take a decade to complete. In most newsrooms across the country, the amplification of police narratives remains a pernicious habit. The bulk of these rewritten press releases don’t even generate much traffic. But there are so many of them that collectively they help digital editors hit their targets.”

Read the full article at Poynter.org.