The Associated Press has removed a post on X that claimed Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance urged Americans to accept school shootings as a “fact of life.”
The news service published the partial excerpt after the Ohio senator spoke following Wednesday's mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, that left four people dead and nine injured.
“J.D. Vance says school shootings are 'everyday occurrence' and calls for increased security,” The Associated Press posted on its social media platform Thursday.
Several left-leaning media outlets, including the New York Times, ran similar headlines. Published an article The headline read, “Governor Vance calls school shootings a tragic 'fact of life,' supports increased security.”
The Associated Press article about X quickly drew a flurry of angry responses, with people accusing the news agency of taking his comments out of context.
Critics pointed to Vance's full statement, which read: “I don't like that this is a fact of life, but if you're a psychopath and you want to make headlines, you'd find our schools to be easy targets, so we have to beef up security in our schools.”
The Associated Press revised the headline in X's follow-up story to read, “J.D. Vance laments that school shootings are a 'fact of life' and says the U.S. needs to step up security to prevent massacres like the one that left four people dead in Georgia this week.”
In the same thread, the Associated Press clarified its original statement: “This post replaces an earlier post, which was deleted, to add context to a partial quote from Mr. Vance.”
Zaid Jilani Independent Journalistposted the story in response to the AP's original link, urging the news agency to change the headline.
“I considered the AP a trustworthy outlet that only published honest news,” Gillani wrote to X.
“Is the AP writing these clickbait articles the equivalent of a tabloid? Very unprofessional.”
The Post has reached out to The Associated Press for comment.
Vance spokesman William Martin said: He blamed the Associated Press.He told Fox News Digital: “This is another example of the fake news media brazenly lying about Republican politicians.”
“Senator Vance said the exact opposite of what the AP claimed,” Martin told Fox News Digital, adding, “It's not surprising that the AP has lost all the credibility it had a few years ago because they will literally lie about anything to support Democrats.”
Martin said Vice President Kamala Harris was “putting children across America at risk by calling for all police officers to be removed from schools.”
“This is yet another example of how Kamala Harris' weak, failed and dangerously liberal policies make her unfit for the presidency,” Martin said.
The Washington Post has reached out to the Harris-Waltz campaign for comment.
