CIRCLING THE WAGONS: Did AP Writer Geoff Mulvihill Lie By Omission In Defending Philadelphia Colleague Sabrina Erdely?

A list of his columns can be found here, with titles like “Developer who didn’t repay loans gets New Jersey tax credits” and “Late winter snowstorm blankets South, Northeast.” So why is he suddenly writing about events that occurred far outside of his usual territory?

A look at his LinkedIn biography provides a possible answer: both Mulvihill and Erdely are long-time residents of Philadelphia, and his writing career began in that city more or less contemporaneously with hers. While they never worked for the same magazine or paper, they’ve traveled in the same journalistic social circles for almost 20 years.

The odds that after almost 20 years Mulvihill is not personally acquainted with Erdely are slim to none. He may very well be a friend of hers. If this is the case, it makes his motive in writing the article quite obvious—it’s an attempt to rehabilitate the image of a longtime friend, whose failures and biases are now the talk of the nation.