The ‘Gulf of America’ feud is about something bigger: Trump wants to control the media — from theguardian.com by Margaret Sullivan
The president punished the AP for choosing its own language, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The press must show unity
Even more broadly, it is about Donald Trump’s wide-ranging effort to control the media and be able to spread propaganda and interfere with the flow of accurate information.
The disagreement started soon after the president decided unilaterally that the Gulf of Mexico was to be called the Gulf of America*. The executive order was one more display of Trump’s capricious and imperious way of doing things; his first month has been a relentless exercise in chaos and norm-destruction.
After the Associated Press, the global news organization, decided to stick with using the long-established name which makes sense to its international readership, the Trump White House determined that punishment was in order.
What’s happening is ugly. In the US, the government doesn’t get to dictate the language journalists use in their stories. There’s a little thing called the first amendment to the US constitution that prohibits this. But the Trump administration, as usual, has its own – often unconstitutional and sometimes illegal – ideas.
The actions against the AP are “retribution, plain and simple, and a shameful attempt to bully the press into ideological compliance”, said Tim Richardson of PEN America.
*Insert from DSC, not from The Guardian:
This was an incredibly arrogant thing to do — something a dictator who is drunk on power and wanting even more power, territory, and wealth would do.
To Mexico and to the rest of the world: Please forgive America for what we’ve become. Then pray for us. Our hearts, minds, perspectives, expectations, and behaviors need a lot of help.