The incident comes after the White House removed Associated Press from the press pool.
The Associated Press repealed and revised the story that US National Intelligence Director Tarsi Gabbard claimed that President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin were “very good friends.”
A spokesman for the outlet, whose stories are widely distributed around the world, told the Epoch era in an email that the story, released on March 17, was removed as “because it does not meet our standards.”
“We notified customers and published a revised story so that editor’s notes are transparent about the error,” the spokesman said.
“Gabad was talking about Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he added.
The original story cited an interview that Gabbard gave to Indian news outlet NDTV.
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While talking to the broadcaster, Gabbard said, “We have two leaders from two great countries who are very good friends and are very focused on how we can strengthen our shared goals and shared interests.”
The Associated Press claims that Gabbard is referring to Trump and Putin, “reflecting the dramatic changes in US-Russia relations under Trump, boasting about his relationship with Putin, denounced Ukraine for its Russian invasion and took a tough line against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.”
The Associated Press also said it “has put critics on alert” comments about Trump and President Putin. The only critic it cited was Russian chess player Garry Kasparov.
David Klepper, the reporter who wrote the article, did not return a query.
“This is why no one trusts the malicious, incompetent, intentionally biased (ED) media. If this is not a clear example of impose only political narratives, then nothing is,” she writes.
The Director of the National Intelligence Office declined to comment further.
The withdrawal comes after the White House removed the Associated Press from the press pool and then chose to continue using the name Gulf of Mexico instead of the new name for the southern Texas waters south of the US Gulf.
