The White House has sparked outrage for attacking the free press by banning Associated Press journalists from covering President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One and in the Oval Office.
The all-out suppression effort had been building all week as the Trump administration barred AP White House correspondents and photographers from certain events because of the news organization’s decision to stick with the four-centuries-old name “Gulf of Mexico” over Trump’s newly named “Gulf of America.”
Washington news organizations denounced the apparent assault on freedom of speech and braced for more to come.
“The actions taken to restrict AP’s coverage of presidential events because of how we refer to a geographic location chip away at this important right enshrined in the U.S. Constitution for all Americans,” AP spokesperson Lauren Easton said in a statement.
The New York Times, in a statement quoted by CNN media reporter Brian Stelter, condemned the White House move as being “at odds with the press freedoms enshrined in the Constitution.”
New from @NYTimes: “We stand by the @AP in condemning repeated acts of retribution by this administration for editorial decisions it disagrees with. Any move to limit access or impede reporters doing their jobs is at odds with the press freedoms enshrined in the Constitution.”
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 14, 2025
And New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker highlighted the unprecedented nature of Trump’s stifling of words that don’t conform with what many critics see as his emerging autocratic rule.
Our colleagues at the @AP are the best in the business, total professionals and straight as they come. Since I started covering the White House in 1996, no president has punished a mainstay of the press pool to enforce his personal choice of what words they use in their stories.
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) February 14, 2025
While some have called for other news outlets to boycott the White House press briefings in a show of solidarity, Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple pointed out that doing so would be counterproductive: “Who’d interrogate Trump officials about their actions against the AP?”
I’ve seen a lot of folks proposing that media outlets boycott White House briefings to protest the treatment of the Associated Press. But then, who’d interrogate Trump officials about their actions against the AP?
— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) February 14, 2025
Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-blacklists-ap-news-for-writing-gulf-of-mexico/