HONEY, GET ME REWRITE
OK newshounds, name the suspicious element in this headline: US terror suspect 'to plead innocent'

The answer is that people plead "not guilty" in the United States, but Associated Press has a funny rule that insists reporters and editors instead use the term "innocent."

innocent Use innocent, rather than not guilty, in describing a defendant's plea or a jury's verdict, to guard against the word not being dropped inadvertently.
--The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual (1996)

So whenever you hear "innocent" in a news story, you can assume it was changed in order to conform to AP style. But if you see "innocent" in quotes, you can assume it was something likely uttered by the defendant or lawyer in an interview - or that someone has lifted something from AP.

The funny thing about the BBC story is that nowhere in the text does it quote anyone using the term "innocent" but in fact uses "not guilty" instead. And nowhere does the story credit AP or any other news outlet.

Lately I've been trying to figure out if BBC is as guilty as other news agencies whose foreign reporters borrow heavily from local media and try to pass it off as their own legwork to the folks back home. The "innocent" headline may be one of those tiny clues that someone was using an AP story to shore up what they had - but without giving AP any credit.
- posted by Amy @ 1/02/2002 08:48:00 AM