Trump's unilateral renaming of gulf sparks media backlash
President Donald Trump, immediately following his inauguration, ordered that the name of the Gulf of Mexico be changed to the American Gulf. This unilateral decision was not warmly received by everyone. Various media outlets, including the AP agency, have refrained from using the new name in their publications. In response, Trump devised a way to penalise them for this.
Renaming the Gulf of Mexico was one of Donald Trump's earliest decisions. It faced immediate opposition from other countries, which argued that it was a decision made unilaterally, without the consent of the nations around this body of water.
The Gulf of Mexico is a transboundary area, and any change to its name would necessitate agreement from all neighbouring countries, including Mexico and Cuba. However, Trump showed no intention of seeking anyone's consent.
It's not surprising that many media outlets still refuse to use the term "American Gulf," including the American news agency AP. President Trump found a way to "punish" the agency for this. He barred the agency’s reporter from entering the Oval Office.
"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," the agency revealed in a statement.
"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", the statement continued.
The mentioned "First Amendment" is one of the foundational amendments to the US Constitution, prohibiting the restriction of freedom of religion, press, speech, petition, and assembly.
Protest from the White House Correspondents' Association
The exclusion of an AP reporter from a scheduled event in the Oval Office also prompted a protest from the head of the White House Correspondents' Association, Eugene Daniels.
"The White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalise working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors’ decisions. 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 stated.
Daniels added that the Association "calls on the administration to immediately change course."
