AP reminds employees to be vigilant after backlash from Sanders supporters

The Associated Press on Tuesday advised staffers to “practice situational awareness” at their bureaus and offices in the wake of social media pushback from supporters of Bernie Sanders who were angered by its decision to call the Democratic nomination for Hillary Clinton.

Danny Spriggs, the AP’s vice president for global security, notified employees that their colleagues were receiving incensed phone calls, emails and social media messages from Sanders backers but noted that the news cooperative hadn’t “received any specific security threats.”

Some AP staff have received angry communications in the form of emails, social media messages and phone calls. We have not received any specific security threats. If you need to respond to complaints, feel free to point the public to the statements on our blog as appropriate. …It is always good to practice situational awareness around AP bureaus and offices.

The wrath from Sanders supporters was prompted by the AP’s decision, made on Monday, to announce that Clinton had clinched the nomination for the Democratic Party ahead of her rival a day before the final primaries. The Sanders camp insists that superdelegates — individual voters who do not formally weigh in until the Democratic National Convention — should not be counted as they still have more than a month to change their allegiances.

The AP declined to discuss on the memo in a statement to Poynter Wednesday morning.

“As a prudent company policy, The Associated Press routinely declines requests to discuss its security concerns and preparedness for publication,” Paul Colford, vice president and director of media relations at The Associated Press, said in an email.

The AP defended its decision to call Clinton the presumptive nominee on its corporate blog, noting that it tallied up the votes in a “painstaking but very straightforward exercise.”

By Monday evening, 571 superdelegates had told us unequivocally that they intend to vote for Clinton at the convention. Adding that number to the delegates awarded to Clinton in primary and caucus voting to date gave her the number needed to be the presumptive nominee. That is news, and reporting the news is what we do. Nothing in that discourages or prevents voters in six states from exercising their right to go to the polls today and cast their ballots.

After the AP declared Clinton the presumptive nominee, several other news organizations, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, followed suit. Journalists for those organizations have also been subject to online abuse from Sanders supporters: New York Times reporter Amy Chozick tweeted Tuesday that Sanders backers threatened to “hunt me down in the streets”; WNYC’s Andrea Bernstein was called a “whore” and a “shill” in emails.

Here’s the memo: