The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) protested a decision by the White House on Tuesday to bar an Associated Press (AP) reporter from an event with US President Donald Trump over the news agency’s decision to continue referring to the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump signed an executive order last month directing the US secretary of the interior to change the name to the Gulf of America.
“The White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalize working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors’ decisions,” association president Eugene Daniels said on Tuesday in a statement posted on X.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The move by the administration to bar a reporter from the Associated Press from an official event open to news coverage today is unacceptable,” Daniels said.
AP executive editor Julie Pace in a statement earlier said that its reporter had been blocked from attending an Oval Office event after being informed by the White House it would be barred unless it aligned its editorial standards with Trump’s order.
“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism,” Pace said, adding that limiting access violated the first amendment of the US Constitution guaranteeing freedom of the press.
The AP says in its stylebook that the Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years and, as a global news agency, the AP would refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the statements by the WHCA and the AP.
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Like the US, Mexico has a long coastline circling the body of water. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum last month jokingly suggested North America, including the US, be renamed “Mexican America” — a historic name used on an early map of the region.
Most news organizations, including Reuters, call it the Gulf of Mexico although, where relevant, Reuters style is to include the context about Trump’s executive order.
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