At the Associated Press, much ado about West Point
It’s not hard these days to find examples of curious journalism decisions, but it’s still worth asking in each case, why?
The Associated Press informed us last week that the U.S. Military Academy at West Point had created a stir with revisions to its mission statement, prompting accusations of “going woke” — and more.
The academy’s famous motto, “Duty, honor, country,” first incorporated into a mission statement revision in 1998, was dropped from this latest version. The motto itself, carved in granite over the entrances to buildings on campus, remains unchanged.
The revised statement — there have been nine such revisions in the past century, according to academy spokesperson Col. Terence Kelley — reads, “To build, educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets to be commissioned leaders of character committed to the Army Values and ready for a lifetime of service to the Army and Nation.”
In response to the change, Rachel Campos-Duffy, co-host of the Fox network’s “Fox & Friends Weekend,” wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that West Point has gone “full globalist” and is “Purposely tanking recruitment of young Americans patriots to make room for the illegal mercenaries.”
Conservative radio host Jeff Kuhner tweeted, “West Point is going woke. We’re watching the slow death of our country.”
West Point Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland said in a statement, “Duty, Honor, Country is foundational to the United States Military Academy’s culture and will always remain our motto.”
“It defines who we are as an institution and as graduates of West Point,” he said. “These three hallowed words are the hallmark of the cadet experience and bind the Long Gray Line together across our great history.”
The article notes that the mission statement “is updated periodically, usually with little fanfare,” then recounts the fevered criticism without any attempt to analyze or explain. Why?
The story doesn’t analyze the changes in the mission statement through the lens of previous statements; I’m guessing the AP wouldn’t find that particularly compelling for a general-interest audience. Nor does the story explore the motivations behind the outcry.
In fact, why write this story at all? Crackpot posts on Twitter are a given, and sometimes unfortunately so are stories based on them. Did the reporter call Campos-Duffy to ask her reasoning? Or did they just find the tweet and others like it and start writing?
I’ve read the mission statement several times, and I’m still struggling to read “a lifetime of service to the Army and Nation” as “make room for the illegal mercenaries.”
Over the course of my career in journalism, newsrooms have struggled with the transition from information gatekeepers to … something else, something still loosely defined. Too often, that something else is information pandering: like a loud noise in a quiet room, or a fender-bender on the side of the road, something that gets you to turn your head and look, if only for a second, before moving on. It may be only a single click or tap, but you won’t get that time back, and you won’t be any wiser.
This originally appeared as the column One Dog Barking in Citizencartwright.com.
