Outcry after AP fired journalist over supporting Palestine

The Associated Press has fired a news associate, Emily Wilder, over her criticism of Israel and support for the people of Palestine, drawing backlash from journalists.

The US news agency, headquartered in New York City, reportedly fired her after Wilder had been targeted by extremist, Zionist media outlets for her pro-Palestinian activism in college days.

Wilder told the British newspaper Guardian that she was “terminated for violating the company’s social media policies in their News Values and Principles sometime between my start date on May 3 and yesterday”.

Wilder said the AP did not provide details which of her tweets broke its policies.

A spokesperson for the news agency said that the organization “can confirm Emily Wilder’s comments on Thursday that she was dismissed for violations of AP’s social media policy during her time at AP”.

"There's no question I was just canceled," Wilder told SFGATE by phone Thursday afternoon.

"This is exactly the issue with the rhetoric around 'cancel culture.' To Republicans, cancel culture is usually seen as teens or young people online advocating that people be held accountable over accusations of racism or whatever it may be, but when it comes down to who actually has to deal with the lifelong ramifications of the selective enforcement of cancel culture — specifically over the issue of Israel and Palestine — it's always the same side," she added.

The journalist said her editor had told her she would not “get in any trouble because everyone had opinions in college”, but “then came the rest of the week.”

This week, Zionist media outlets published stories about Wilder, highlighting her past criticism on social media of the Israeli regime and of Zionists, including Sheldon Adelson – the dead billionaire and mega financer of the Republican Party.

She had previously worked with the newspaper Arizona Republic after graduating from Stanford University, when the Stanford College Republicans tweeted a thread highlighting her support for Palestine.

The Zionist online publication Washington Free Beacon claimed that that Wilder’s hiring in Phoenix, Arizona, “could fuel concerns about the AP’s objectivity amid revelations that the news outlet shared an office building with Hamas military intelligence in Gaza”.

Israeli forces launched an airstrike on a building that housed several news organizations, including AP and Al Jazeera in Gaza City on Saturday, amid the latest round of Israeli aggression in the area. The entire 12-story building collapsed, according to AP.

The Israeli regime forces said they bombed the building because Hamas has "placed military assets" inside high-rise buildings for intelligence gathering, communication and other purposes, a claim media outlets have strongly rejected.

Even the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had seen no evidence indicating that Hamas military intelligence were operating in the building.

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Wilder had tweeted 18 times since she began working at AP. She posted about objectivity, on May 16. “‘Objectivity’ feels fickle when the basic terms we use to report news implicitly stake a claim,” she wrote. “Using ‘Israel’ but never ‘Palestine,’ or ‘war’ but not ‘siege and occupation’ are political choices – yet media make those exact choices all the time without being flagged as biased.”

Journalists expressed outrage over Wilder’s firing and sent messages of solidarity. “I stand with Emily,” wrote Rebekah Sanders, an Arizona Republic reporter. “Her reporting at our newspaper was excellent. Reverse your decision NOW.”

“I’d bet a lot of money this person is about to get a much better job,” tweeted NBC’s Ben Collins.

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