AP Changes "Dissidents" to "Challengers" >

[Stephanie]

I copied this half an hour ago, but forgot to get the link. When I went back for the link, lo and behold, "dissidents" had morphed into "challengers"! Kudos to the AP!
______________________________

By CARRIE SPENCER, Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio delegation to the Electoral College (news - web sites) cast its votes for President Bush (news - web sites) on Monday, hours after dissident groups asked the state Supreme Court to review the outcome of the state's presidential race.

<snip>

The dissidents claim there were disparities in vote totals for Democrats, too few voting machines in Democrat-leaning precincts, organized campaigns directing voters to the wrong polling place and confusion over the counting of provisional ballots by voters whose names did not appear in the records at polling places.

<snip>

Led by a coalition representing the Green and Libertarian parties, the dissidents are paying for recounts in each of Ohio's 88 counties that will begin this week. The recounts are not expected to be complete until next week.

______________________________


*edit* AGAIN, I forgot the link!

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041214/ap_on_re_us/ohio_electoral_college_10

[knowbody0]

1. next we will be insurgents

[tandem5]

27. yeah we're getting there n/t

[jamboi]

2. Hallelujah! n/t

[DireStrike]

3. Yay! Now let's hope "insurgents" becomes "rebels"

Just because there's no legitimate government to oust doesn't make them any less rebellious.

[Us vs Them]

4. Ha!

Like it really matters either way now? Fuck the AP. And I rarely throw that around.

[New Earth]

5. challengers is much nore positive than 'dissidents'

is this a good step or am i looking at it wrong?

[thanatonautos]

33. Not sure ... dissidents has good connotations from the Soviet period

Think Sakharov or Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.

However, a lot of dissidents were sent to Siberia
or to receive `psychiatric treatment,' or just shot.

Challengers, on the other hand, sounds to me
at the same time more active and less rebellious.

Maybe it's better for home consumption and
worse for international?

[RoeBear]

6. Being called 'challenged'...

...is an improvement?

[New Earth]

11. they didn't call us 'challenged' they called us challengers

we are basically challenging the election, aren't we?

i think it has a lot a less negative connotation than 'dissident'. dissident is almost like an insurgent....

[Liberty Belle]

7. That's good news! I complained to AP earlier.

I'll be they got a flood of complaints that prompted the changed.
Personally I'd have preferred "patriots," but "challengers" sounds positive--makes me thing of a sports team raising a challenge when the other side cheats. :bounce:

[Stephanie]

10. Yes it is - they listened

here is a link to an earlier version of the story, not updated with the correction >

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4671412,00.html

[jamboi]

17. Good job LB! n/t

[RaulVB]

8. Next come "rebels"

I tell you...

[Griffy]

9. then "evil doers" nt

[tandem5]

30. yep and I think we should go on the record right now...

we do not have nor have we ever possessed weapons of mass destruction - you know just in case they were thinking about invading us for our oil (Personally, all I have is a can WD-40 in my closet).

[JunkYardDogg]

12. I'm Pround of Being a Dissident

It is much better than being the Borg

[bloom]

31. I rather liked the dissident word - it sounds serious....eom

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. They are now fighting us (eom)

[EFerrari]

14. The same thing happened with the "35 million" votes, it morphed

into 3.5 in one of their weekend pieces of trash.

Darn, just when I was getting comfortable with being a dissident, too.

[Us vs Them]

15. If I sent them this e-mail: "Dissidents' changed to 'Challengers.'

'Challengers' changed to 'Patriots.'

We are the citizens fighting to retain the legitimacy of this democracy. Something smells regarding the transparency of our elections and you have the NERVE to call us Dissidents?

Dissident this: I may not have been mad before, but now have half a mind to live up to my reputation as such. You have not begun to see dissidence, my friends.




Would I be reported?

[femme.democratique]

22. When in Rome....

Since we're in a dictatorship, "dissidents" is quite apropos...

[righteous1]

16. NY Times article still using dissidents as of 15 min. ago n/t

[jamboi]

19. The problem is going to be that many papers already have the original

version. That's a done deal. I doubt they have some kind of dynamic link. At least some outlets won't have picked it up yet and we'll get them, and if AP is more careful in future articles I'm satisfied.

[Guarionex]

18. good...

our "dissent" against them calling us "dissenters" worked...

CHECK YOUR WORDS NEXT TIME AP!

[righteous1]

21. Actually dissident and dissenter are synonomous n/t

[marions ghost]

20. "Challengers" is a lot better...

...maybe we should keep pushing that term as a substitute wherever we can.

Gosh, "challengers" sounds more like the noble band of citizen fighters that we are...the Voice of Many (that we are)

"Dissidents" immediately implies fringe group, angry mob...out of touch with the Majority

Thanks to you all who wrote strong messages about this--I think it might have made AP think twice about their terms. I was writing other emails and didn't do it, since the group had covered it so well. But I was in agreement that we need to reject biased and misleading terms immediately--before they go malignant.

Thanks for the update, Stephanie

[Guarionex]

24. i got it, i got it!

we should push them to change it to "The Avengers".

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!!!!!!

[warbly]

25. I'm proud to be a dissident

challenger whatever. It is better than being a sheep. I think the dissident term fits me better because I do not accept the results of this fraudulent, counted by secret gop software, exit poll contradicting election, and i do not accept the legitimacy of gw bush as the president of America.
So, I guess I am a dissident.

[Carolab]

23. WROOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGG

It STILL says DISSIDENT GROUPS in the first paragraph.

Go back and READ IT AGAIN.

[Stephanie]

28. I know

but they changed it when speaking of individuals. They use dissident once, in the first graph, to modify groups. But they don't say "dissidents" any more to speak of individuals, and that was the offensive usage.

[Generator]

26. Next time you check

It will be "Those that dare to question our Emperor in Chief, King Bunnypants the 1st".....

[Democrat Dragon]

29. Or maybe even good ol' fashioned

"commie", "traitor", "terrorist", and "far-left liberal".

[Stephanie]

32. Well at least they can't call us "Reds"

.

[proudtobeadem]

34. Cool, it's a good thing :)

[angrydemocrat]

35. LOL

I think it is funny they are fighting us now! I just got three words for all the assholes "BRING IT ON!!"

[tommcintyre]

36. "Challenge asks Ohio's top court to review vote:"

Same AP article - I'm updating the National Media Blaster letter with it right now.

The full excerpt I'm adding:

- Challenge asks Ohio's top court to review vote: "The challengers who went to the Supreme Court question whether Bush won the key swing state by 119,000 votes, guaranteeing his victory over Democrat John Kerry."... "The challengers allege unlawful ballots were added to the total and legally cast ballots were altered. Without listing specific evidence, the complaint alleges 130,656 votes for Kerry and John Edwards in 36 counties were somehow switched to count for the Bush-Cheney ticket."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002118804_ohio14.html

Could all our efforts be having an effect on the coverage? Many hundreds* (maybe much more since not all included a copy to me) of letters were blasted in the last couple of days. Are they starting to pay attention to us?

* Maybe many more (in four figures) sent the emails, and didn't include a copy to me. My "hits" to those blaster entry pages (below) skyrocketed in the last couple of days - in the thousands. The server got very slow also. ;~}

http://www.independentmediasource.com/voteintegrity.htm

http://www.independentmediasource.com/voteintegrity_tell_cspan.htm

I will repost these two (updated) blasters as soon As I am finished updating them.

[Im_Your_Huckleberry]

37. i rather like being a dissident.

has a nice ring to it.