Associated Press Reporter Blocked By White House
[guest post by Dana]
This has to be a first:
The Associated Press says the White House blocked it from covering an official event on Tuesday because it did not refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
AP Executive Editor Julie Pace said that the White House informed the news agency that its journalists would be barred from attending President Trump’s signing of a new executive order because it had not aligned its language with Trump’s preferred name for the body of water.
Here is a statement released by the AP concerning the matter:
. . .Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office. This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.
It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism. 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.
FIRE released a statement on behalf of the AP:
Punishing journalists for not adopting state-mandated terminology is an alarming attack on press freedom. That’s viewpoint discrimination, and it’s unconstitutional.
President Trump has the authority to change how the U.S. government refers to the Gulf. But he cannot punish a news organization for using another term. The role of our free press is to hold those in power accountable, not to act as their mouthpiece. Any government efforts to erode this fundamental freedom deserve condemnation.
—Dana
Hello.
Dana (decefa) — 2/11/2025 @ 8:53 pmTrump’s fascism is never far below the surface.
“Gulf of America” is nationalist jingoism, denying a name that has been in effect for nearly five centuries, all to satisfy our tender-egoed president.
Paul Montagu (d546d4) — 2/11/2025 @ 9:19 pmRenaming the Gulf of Mexico was a stupid stunt meant to delight the rubes.
Even my 93-year-old mother, a former Trump voter, said the name change was ridiculous.
norcal (a72384) — 2/11/2025 @ 9:23 pmDamn! You mean we will have to report the news and do investigating reporting in stead of copying a press release and putting it out as news? Who do does trump think he we are woodward and bernstein?
asset (e8098a) — 2/12/2025 @ 12:41 amTrump has always played the media like the yoyos they are.
nk (5059d1) — 2/12/2025 @ 3:16 amThe Biden stenographers have to do their jobs again. Oh, no.
Wonder how they felt about being locked away during the Obama and Biden admins.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/12/2025 @ 5:12 amThe AP anointed themselves language police a long time ago. Being on the receiving side of it might be educational to them, but I doubt it.
lloyd (c2885d) — 2/12/2025 @ 7:00 amIt’s a thing all presidents do. Petty, sure. But typical.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 2/12/2025 @ 7:10 amAnd while we’re talking about a needy toddler’s tantrum because he did not get affirmation for the clever thing he scribbled on the wall, we are not talking about the possibility of grandma’s next Social Security payment being directly deposited into some DOGE Wallet account in Bosnia (instead of her account at her bank over here).
nk (6c6290) — 2/12/2025 @ 7:51 am“Gulf of America” was a “Sooey! Here, piggy, piggy!” called out to the MAGA sty.
They pricked their ears and oinked, but for how long does a hog call keep a sty’s attention?
So Trump called out another “Sooey! Here, piggy, piggy!” with this stunt with AP.
Like yoyos. He plays the media like yoyos.
nk (6c6290) — 2/12/2025 @ 8:00 amOn the flip side, some people who are slightly more intelligent than TV journalists- Code Pink- who believe China has the absolute right to do whatever it wants in the South China Sea
steveg (ae110d) — 2/12/2025 @ 8:48 amTrump is like a crocodile who is the apex predator of his media mudhole. Jim Acosta can attest to the fact that if you keep going back to the Trump mudhole, you eventually find yourself limping off to a midnight timeslot wondering what happened to your ass
steveg (ae110d) — 2/12/2025 @ 9:00 amTrump is brilliant at marketing.
This is a great example of that. Everybody wins from a marketing standpoint.
Trump space love the open, disrespect against a media outlet.
People who don’t like Trump get excited and get to make a lot of noise because they can claim this is antifreeze speech, or some such.
It ultimately doesn’t matter very much, but drives a lot of clicks attention and chatter. Which from the horseshoe theory of politics all the garbage people really love. left and right
Doesn’t really accomplish anything except marketing and the man is brilliant at that
Time123 (1d91ef) — 2/12/2025 @ 9:23 amWill GM now have to change the name of their premium luxury SUV package from Denali to Mount McKinley?
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/12/2025 @ 9:51 amHow does the AP refer to Taiwan? Or the Persian Gulf?
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 2/12/2025 @ 11:34 amIn another place, the Administration went back to traditional, more well known names:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gpk9wyddzo
He found another Bragg. (which was probably one proposal a few years back)
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 2/12/2025 @ 11:56 amGratified to see that the left and many here have finally found a name change they don’t like.
Old names were stripped of grade schools, law schools (so much for “Boalt Hall,” for example), and old weathered statues, frozen memories of the past, were removed and some melted down.
And it was OK to watch the AP, LA Times et.al., choke the national langauge by excising terms like “illegal alien,” “WASP,” “Eskimo” “Ghetto,” “handicap,” “Hillbilly,” “mailman,” “mankind,” “cockpit” (flight deck), “stewardess,” “Latino” (LAT seemingly wants all hispanics refer to themselves as “Latinx”), etc. Forts were renamed. Fine fine.
But changing a Gulf that borders the US! Mon Dieu! Partisans put down their “Life of Kamala Harris” (abridged edition) to howl that the president is throwing a “tantrum” (#9 above), and doing a “stupid stunt” (# 3).
Paul is closest to reality: it was in use for centuries. Using Gulf of America is awkward for many, and it will discombobulate anyone hearing the old song (“jingoism” at its peak as Paul would say), “The Battle Of New Orleans” for the first time.
Harcourt Fenton Mudd (0c349e) — 2/12/2025 @ 12:55 pmThis is nothing new, the Bully-in-Chief bullying a news service for not toeing the bully’s line.
Paul Montagu (c36845) — 2/12/2025 @ 2:09 pmDissent is patriotic, as the Left used to say about GW Bush.
1) Gulf of “America” instead of Gulf of “Mexico” is meh… mebbe because I’m older and don’t like name changes.
2) Penalizing AP for not supporting name change is petty af. Frankly, they’re reaping what they’ve sowed being a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party.
3) Changing names because of “x” for the most part sucks. I had that same problem when Mt. Denali was Mt. McKinley for most of my life.
4) Fort Bragg being renamed back is really some snarky rules lawyering, as you’d have to applaud it. Reminds me how some of my Magic the Gathering games went, when the spirit of the rules was violated by the black & white text of the rule itself.
Besides, to all service folks in Bragg… they’ve always called it Fort Bragg. Even after the name change.
Just like those living/working in the Gulf of Mexico (sorry “America”)… it was always, and will always be referred to as “The Gulf”.
whembly (b7cc46) — 2/12/2025 @ 2:26 pmIn short:
It’s called the Sears Tower…
X is still called Twitter…
The Gulf is still the Gulf of Mexico…
Mt Denali is still Mt McKinley…
..and like always Ft. Bragg is still Bragg…
whembly (b7cc46) — 2/12/2025 @ 2:47 pm