The Associated Press announced Thursday that it will delete a two week old tweet about Hillary Clinton’s meetings as Secretary of State “after concluding the tweet fell short of AP standards by omitting essential context.”
The original tweet said, “BREAKING: AP analysis: More than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money to Clinton Foundation.”
The tweet was criticized by Clinton supporters and members of the media who said it neglected the difference between official meetings and discretionary meetings. While the article was not criticized, the tweet was.
AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll called the tweet “sloppy” when appearing on CNN’s Reliable Sources, but said she did not “regret” the tweet because otherwise the AP would have deleted it.
The AP is making changes to its tweet policy as a result of this tweet. Tweets will now be subject to approval before publication and removal will come after a review process. If a tweet is removed, there will be a tweet explaining the deletion. The AP says that this reflects a change in the industry’s thinking about tweets, viewing them as standalone news offerings.
Editors also underwent training this week for the new tweet procedures.
“We have to be the AP, wherever our work is being distributed,” said Carroll. “Do we wish we had gotten to this conclusion earlier than we did? Absolutely.”