AP Europe describes migration 'crisis' facing Spain, despite wire service avoiding term for US border surge

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Media top headlines May 18

Sen. Tom Cotton saying the Associated Press has to account for working in the same building as Hamas and more round out today's top media headlines.

The Associated Press's Europe bureau used the word "crisis" on Tuesday to describe the escalating situation in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, where thousands of migrants are arriving by sea after Morocco loosened border restrictions, despite the AP avoiding the term to describe the influx of migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The noun also appears in the AP's accompanying report.

"The sudden influx of migrants has fueled the diplomatic spat between Rabat and Madrid over the disputed Western Sahara region and created a humanitarian crisis for Ceuta, the Spanish city of 85,000 in North Africa on the Mediterranean Sea, separated from Morocco by a double-wide, 10-meter (32-feet) fence," the AP's Enata Brito and Aritz Parra reported from Ceuta, a Spanish autonomous city on the North African coast.

ASSOCIATED PRESS WARNS STAFFERS NOT TO CALL INFLUX AT SOUTHERN BORDER A ‘CRISIS’ IN INTERNAL MEMO

The tweet from AP Europe was published the same day the Washington Free Beacon filed a report on how the wire service has continually downplayed the surge on the U.S.-Mexico border. In March alone, border patrol encountered 172,000 migrants, thousands of whom were unaccompanied children. But in a memo to reporters in late March, the AP concluded the situation on the U.S. border "does not fit the classic dictionary definition of a crisis." They instructed reporters to only use "accurate and neutral" terms in reporting on the increase — and to "avoid hyperbole in calling anything a crisis or an emergency." 

"The AP pressed news outlets in March to ‘avoid imagery conjuring war or natural disaster, which could portray migrants as a negative, harmful influence," the Free Beacon said in its report. "Avoid emotive words like onslaught, tidal wave, flood, inundation, surge, invasion, army, march, sneak, and stealth.’ But Customs and Border Protection officials told the Free Beacon that they hold weekly meetings they call 'surge meetings' to discuss ways to process the thousands of migrants flooding into the country."

The AP "bowed to the pressure campaign" from the Biden administration, the Free Beacon continued, to avoid terms that sound too aggressive, despite often using words like "surge" in their early reporting. 

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TO RESUME BORDER WALL LEVEE CONSTRUCTION AS CRISIS WORSENS

"If using the word ‘crisis,’ we need to ask of what and to whom," the AP instructed. "There could be a humanitarian crisis if the numbers grow so large that officials cannot house the migrants safely or in sanitary conditions. Migrants may face humanitarian crises in their home countries. In theory, there could be a security or a border crisis if officials lose control of the border, allowing people to enter unencumbered in large numbers. But, in general, avoid hyperbole in calling anything a crisis or an emergency."

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Republicans have argued the migrant surge on the U.S.-Mexico does fit the definition of a crisis, and the Biden administration itself has slipped up a few times on the language. In April, President Biden used the term "crisis" to describe the mess, before the White House again did damage control.

"We’re going to increase the number [of refugees]," Biden told a group of reporters. "The problem was that the refugee part was working on the crisis that ended up on the border with young people. We couldn’t do two things at once. But now we are going to increase the number."