Today, on your Morning Update, a private citizen is suing the Associated Press (AP) over stories that harmed his business by portraying it as an illegal activity. AP, facing millions in losses, is arguing that the words don’t always mean what they say they mean.
00:00 The AP Style Guide (words mean things)
01:19 Zachary Young’s Legal Battle with the AP (Words don’t mean things)
Watch on the ‘Grok Rumble Channel if the embedded video does not load.
Ep. 194 Link(s):
- https://redstate.com/bradslager/2026/06/10/the-associated-press-argues-against-itself-in-court-claims-it-should-not-be-held-to-its-own-ap-stylebook-n2203222
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
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Transcript [lightly edited]:
Welcome to your Friday, June 12th, 2026, Morning update. The Associated Press has a style guide. You may have heard about it. During the BLM riots, we were told that the word black had to be capitalized, while the word white did not.
It’s a very influential document. Lots of people use it. Anybody who wants to be picked up by AP uses it, and that’s just about everybody. In other words, what the AP style guide says matters.
That brings us to the case of Zachary Young.
Young is suing the AP over the way he was portrayed in news reports. Young, you might recall, as the military veteran who successfully sued CNN for defamation over its portrayal of him as a black market operator. (black is in lowercase). In facilitating the evacuation of individuals from troubled regions, Young’s professional business of exfiltrating people was impacted when the news channel framed him as an illegal opportunist, possibly extorting people in dire situations.
We actually know some folks personally who do this for a living, so this is interesting to me.
Now Young has a similar suit against the Associated Press. In it he is saying that the AP described what he did as a form of human smuggling. And it so happens this is the term that the AP is arguing against in its own defense, doing so in a deeply curious fashion. Young’s legal team has cited that in the Associated Press style book, they address that particular term, and its description is that of an illegal activity.
The AP is not denying that it used the term. The AP is actually arguing that it should not be held to its own standard. Amazingly, the news source for all the approved language in the media is claiming that it ought not be subject to the AP style guide.
Young’s counsel said to the three-judge panel, so the article says, that Young’s business helped smuggle people out of Afghanistan and then talks about the funding for that. So those are the definitional elements of the crime of human smuggling as recognized by federal and international law, and also as recognized in the AP style book, which defines smuggling as illegal cross-border transport, illegal movement of people across the border in exchange for money.
And his lawyers provided something like 40 examples before and after the stories about their client that showed that that was exactly how it was used and defined.
AP is sort of like, my God, that’s not like all the time. That’s not always how we use it. We’re, you know, it’s like when you sue us, it doesn’t mean that.
Well, words matter. ⁓ Unless you sue them. Then the words mean whatever it means so that they don’t have to pay millions of dollars for ruining somebody’s business.
That’s it for today. We’ll talk to you on Monday.
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