Creative Leads Without Bias

To the editors:

Your editorial “AP-ing the News” (Mar. 21) violates a basic journalistic principle: you erroneously take the Associated Press to task for violating a basic principle of our journalism without even bothering to call us for comment. Our new “optional lead” initiative to provide newspapers with an additional way to compete for readers is rooted in a basic tenet of AP journalism: impartiality. You equate different styles of writing a spot news story with changing the facts. Facts remain the same. Objective journalistic styles for writing facts are myriad. In our advisory we solicit comment about our initiative from editors. Yours is the first to equate writing styles with “editorializing” or “bias.”

JACK STOKES

New York, N.Y.

March 22, 2005

The writer is Director of Media Relations for The Associated Press.