Assoicated Press & Austin American Statement = Squealer

The mainline Press today is becoming more and more like Lenin's propaganda department, like Squealer in the George Orwell novel Animal Farm. More so than ever before.

Propaganda department of Lenin's government

• worked for Stalin to support his image
• used any lie to convince the people to follow Stalin
• benefited from the fact that education was controlled

Squealer

• big mouth, talks a lot
• convinces animals to believe and follow Napoleon
• changes and manipulates the commandments

Case in point

The AP released a story yesterday about two Austin men who had planned to "disrupt" the Republican National Convention in St. Paul earlier this month. Here is the "very straight forward and descriptive" headline used by the AP and scores of it's affiliate news outlets (including the Austin American Statesman), who dutifully regurgitated the story.

Federal jury indicts 2 Texas men over RNC actions

And here is a variation used by a local Austin TV station on its web site.

Federal jury indicts 2 Austin men over RNC actions

My three homeschooled boys (ages 9 to 14) agree that the plain sense reading of this headline indicates that the phrase "RNC actions" means "actions of (the) RNC", whatever that is. My 14 year old asked "is RNC the Republication National Committee?" He took the bait. In the spirit of full disclosure I must note that my 7 year old homeschooled daughter said that the men are the ones acting, though she is not sure why she is of that opinion.

At the very least the headline is ambiguous because of the use of the acronym RNC to modify "actions". RNC is the trademark acronym of the Republican National Committee and less frequently used in the Press to short-hand the Republican National Convention.

Also, I'm left scratching my head about the word "actions". I thought the two Austin lefties were just planning some kind of attack (termed a "disruption" in the AP story) and that the only action taken was by police/security; action to catch the men before they acted.

Attention, AP! Why not come up with a straightforward heading like this:

Federal jury indicts 2 Texas men over planned disruption of RNC

Though RNC remains ambiguous, at least there is no ambiguity about who the perpetrators are.

So, whose image is the AP supporting? Who is the AP's and the Austin American Stateman's Stalin/Napoleon?