The Associated Press said on Tuesday that one of its reporters was barred from an Oval Office event because the outlet has continued to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by its original name.
In a statement, The A.P.’s executive editor, Julie Pace, said that they were informed by the White House that the news organization would not be allowed to attend the event if the outlet did not start using “Gulf of America,” the name President Trump decreed through an executive order in January. Mr. Trump signed an executive order in front of reporters at the Oval Office on Tuesday, calling on federal agencies to work with Elon Musk’s cost-cutting effort, called the Department of Government Efficiency.
“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish A.P. for its independent journalism,” Ms. Pace said. “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.”
Eugene Daniels, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, called on the Trump administration to “immediately change course.”
“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,” Mr. Daniels said in a statement. “The move by the administration to bar a reporter from The Associated Press from an official event open to news coverage today is unacceptable.”
The A.P. had issued editorial guidance about the Gulf of Mexico on Jan. 23. In a post on its website, it said that the body of water had carried its name for more than 400 years and shared borders with both the U.S. and Mexico. Because Mr. Trump’s executive order only carried authority within the U.S. and had not been recognized by Mexico, the A.P. said it would refer to the Gulf of Mexico “by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.”
Meanwhile, the A.P. did update its stylebook to reflect Mr. Trump’s order to revert the name of Denali, a mountain in Alaska, back to Mt. McKinley.
Mr. Trump issued the executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico on Jan. 20, part of his pledge to honor “American greatness.” He declared Feb. 9 “Gulf of America Day.”
