White House bars AP reporter from Oval Office because of AP policy on ‘Gulf of America’
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The White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from an event in the Oval Office after demanding the news agency alter its style on the Gulf of Mexico, which President Trump has ordered renamed the “Gulf of America.”
The reporter tried to attend the White House event as usual Tuesday afternoon and was turned away, AP executives said. The highly unusual ban, which Trump administration officials had threatened earlier Tuesday unless the AP changed the style on the Gulf, could have constitutional free-speech implications.
Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor of the Associated Press, called the administration’s move unacceptable.
“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism,” Pace said in a statement. “Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”
Trump has referred to Canada as the ‘51st state,’ demanded that Denmark consider ceding Greenland, and called for Panama to return the Panama Canal.
The Trump administration made no immediate announcements about the move, and there was no indication any other journalists were affected. Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with the news media. On Friday, the administration ejected a second group of news organizations from Pentagon office space.
AP style is used not only by the agency. Thousands of journalists and other writers globally rely on the AP Stylebook. It is one of the primary sources for style and standards at the Los Angeles Times.
Demands by a president that a news organization comply with an order to change its content would seem to run counter to the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bars the government from impeding the freedom of the press.
Mexico’s president pokes fun at Trump’s suggestion to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Before his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump announced plans to change the Gulf of Mexico’s name to the “Gulf of America” — and signed an executive order to do so as soon as he was in office. Mexico’s president responded sarcastically and others noted that the name change would probably not affect global usage.
This week, Google Maps began using “Gulf of America,” saying it had a “longstanding practice” of following the U.S. government’s lead on such matters. The other leading online map provider, Apple Maps, was still using Gulf of Mexico.
The AP said last month, three days after Trump’s inauguration, that it would continue references to the Gulf of Mexico while noting Trump’s decision to rename it as well. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP says it must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.
Trump also decreed that the name of the mountain in Alaska be restored to Mt. McKinley to commemorate the 25th president. President Obama had ordered the change to Denali, its Indigenous name, in 2015.
The AP last month said it will abide by the official name change to Mt. McKinley because the area lies solely within the United States and Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names within the country.
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