The Associated Press said one of its reporters was “blocked” from entering the Oval Office to see President Trump sign an executive order on Tuesday, after the news outlet declined to refer to the recently-renamed “Gulf of Mexico” as the “Gulf of America.”
President Trump signed an executive order last month renaming the gulf, which touches Mexico, the southern U.S. and Cuba.
“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,” AP Executive Editor Julie Pace said in a statement. “This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.”
She did not mention the name of the AP reporter who was denied access to the executive order signing.
Pace added it was “alarming” that the Trump Administration “would punish AP for its independent journalism.” Limiting access to the Oval Office based on the AP’s refusal to call it the Gulf of America, Pace said, “not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”
A rep for the White House did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
The president’s executive order last month changing the government’s official name for the gulf led to some companies, including Google, changing the name to the Gulf of America. The AP referred to it as the “Gulf of Mexico” in a video story posted on Feb. 9, the same day President Trump signed a proclamation making the date “Gulf of America Day.”
Later Tuesday afternoon, the White House Correspondents Association said in a statement, “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. 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 WHCA stands with The Associated Press and calls on the administration to immediately change course,” the statement, attributed to organization president Eugene Daniels, concluded.
