"Text of a July 2, 2013, letter to Edward Snowden from his father and
father’s attorney
Here is the text of the open letter Lon Snowden, along with his attorney,
Bruce Fein, wrote to NSA leaker Edward Snowden. The letter was provided
to The Associated Press."
The inclusion of Mr. Snowden's letter to the Associated Press's original title and introduction makes this a derivative work for which copyright protection is available[0].
Even without that (or if my understanding of a derivative work is incorrect) you are construing mechanical output of boilerplate CMS content as a specific intent to claim copyright, an assertion which lacks supporting evidence.
It's a matter of intent. Looking at a few other articles, it seems it's a stock copyright notice added to the end of every article with 'Associated Press' given as the author.
"Changing the facts?" - I don't follow. The data is there in front of you, nothing has been changed. Most likely article authors have no capacity to remove that statement from their posts and that it's just boilerplate CMS content.
We should not necessarily ascribe to malice what can be explained through lack of functionality.
"Don't read too much into it" is a smokescreen. They are claiming copyright, are you trying to change the facts?