2 hours Ago By Reuters
The Associated Press did not publish a headline on Mississippi’s literacy program that misspelled the state’s name as “Missippi” as shown in a fabricated screenshot shared online with a caption questioning the credibility of AP’s election poll reporting. A screenshot of the headline, “Missippi’s literacy program shows improvement,” with a byline attributed to The Associated Press, was posted on social media , opens new tab captioned, “And the Associated press wants us to trust them on voting poll results..
.think about that.” No such headline , opens new tab can be found in archives on the Associated Press website, however.
In an email to Reuters, Nicole Meir, media relations manager at The Associated Press, said the outlet did not publish the headline. A part of the article text visible in the screenshot states, “and his late wife, Sally, put up $100 million of their own money to improve ‘prelitera.’” This exact text can be found in articles attributed to The Associated Press that were published in 2005 with different headlines.
The headline, “Mogul’s literacy investment shows results in poor state,” was published on June 12, 2005, in an issue of El Dorado News-Times , opens new tab which is available on digital newspaper distribution company PressReader. The same story was published the next day with the headline, “Investment in literacy program pays dividends: Mississippi schoolchildren show 'statistically significant' improvement.” It can be found on The Wenatchee World website , opens new tab .
The earliest iteration , opens new tab of the fabricated headline with the spelling error is a March 5, 2010, YouTube video posted by an account called “Proofreading course” and containing a montage of images highlighting various spelling errors. False. There is no evidence that The Associated Press published a headline misspelling Mississippi.
A spokesperson for the outlet said it did not publish the headline. This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab.
