Home Highlights AP Reporters Impressed with English-Speaking Foreigners

AP Reporters Impressed with English-Speaking Foreigners

What makes an AP (associated press) reporter? Their ability to say “I’m a native speaker.” Of what language? Of course, American.
So, what happened yesterday when some hackers who eventually identified themselves as the Syrian Electronic Army took credit for spreading news on Twitter using the AP twitter account? The real AP said “Wow, that’s unbelievable. Look at how well Syrians speak American.”
[youtube id= rs93d2R5SwY width=470 height=315]
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Apparently, the Electronic Syrians had contacted real AP reporters on an individual basis. The chosen ones reported that they had received an “impressively disguised” phishing email – perhaps about lustful young Belarusian women. The targeted APs further added:

 It’s not easy for overseas hackers who are not native speakers of the language used by their targets to write completely convincing emails. http://qz.com/77464/how-the-syrian-electronic-army-hacked-the-ap-and-who-are-these-guys-anyway/

Too bad the AP hiring scale does not include the Stanford-Binet one. At a minimum, though, it should train its reporters, that the twitter English is not the standard for native speaking. Take the following example:

Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Of course, you have to consider the source – I had to look up “Stanford-Binet.” On the other hand, I was about to say (essentially) what you said, English? It’s Twitter!

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