“The story, which did not go out on the wire to our customers, didn’t go through our standard editing process. We are looking into how that happened,” AP spokesperson Nicole Meir told The Verge in an email.

News reports (and fact-checks specifically) are often worded in a way that carefully threads a needle — there’s a difference between saying something definitively didn’t happen versus saying there’s no evidence of it. My guess is that the AP headline was the problem here because it claims to debunk something that is unknowable.

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    2 months ago

    I’m going to start a news website posting articles with absolutely true titles that really sound like they really could have happened. Like this:

    “Donald Trump did NOT send a picture he drew of a giraffe to Mokgweetsi Masisi, President of Botswana”

    “JD Vance did NOT fornicate with the Ikea LINANÄS Sofa, with chaise/Vissle dark gray”

    "Mitch McConnell was NOT the victim of a failed Neuralink attempt from Elon Musk who was trying to communicate with The Mole Men "