The White House is barring all Associated Press journalists from accessing spaces such as the Oval Office and Air Force One, a top White House official announced Friday, after the White House shut the AP out of the Oval Office and a formal news conference earlier in the week.
The decision to limit AP’s access stems from its decision not to recognize the Trump administration’s name change from Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America on federal maps, websites and documents. Instead, the White House says it will open AP’s spot in the White House press pool to other reporters.
“The Associated Press continues to ignore the lawful geographic name change of the Gulf of America,” wrote White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich. “This decision is not just divisive, but it also exposes the Associated Press’ commitment to misinformation. While their right to irresponsible and dishonest reporting is protected by the First Amendment, it does not ensure their privilege of unfettered access to limited spaces, like the Oval Office and Air Force One. Going forward, that space will now be opened up to the many thousands of reporters who have been barred from covering these intimate areas of the administration. Associated Press journalists and photographers will retain their credentials to the White House complex.”
The AP is a regular representative in the White House press pool, the rotating group of reporters, videographers and photographers who cover the president daily and travel with him whenever he leaves White House grounds. The AP is a news wire service that covers the globe, and local newspapers have increasingly relied on it and other syndicated news outlets as local newsrooms undergone staffing reductions. The AP estimates 4 billion people read its news every day, and it has journalists in nearly 100 countries.
The AP style guide, which many newsrooms across the country follow, published an update on Jan. 23, two days after the president signed his executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico. It noted that Mr. Trump’s order only carries authority within the U.S. and other countries did not have to recognize the change. The wire service’s guide said that as an international agency, “the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.”
In his executive order, Mr. Trump had also reverted the name of Alaska’s Mt. Denali back to Mount McKinley. AP said it would refer to it as Mount McKinley because it “lies solely in the United States,” adding that “as president, Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names within the country.”
The White House Correspondents Association, which represents hundreds of reporters who cover the White House, criticized the White House after it barred AP reporters from a news conference with President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday.
“The White House’s decision to bar Associated press reporters from today’s press conference with President Trump and Prime Minister Modi is outrageous and a deeply disappointing escalation of an already unacceptable situation,” the WHCA said. “Let me be clear: the White House is seeking to curtail press freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, and has publicly admitted they are restricting access to events to punish a news outlet for not advancing the government’s preferred language.”
The WHCA also said the White House’s decision constituted a “textbook violation of not only the First Amendment, but the president’s own executive order on freedom of speech and ending federal censorship.”
After AP’s ban from the Trump-Modi news conference, AP executive editor Julie Pace also called the White House’s decision a “plain violation of the First Amendment,” and she urged the Trump administration “in the strongest terms possible to stop this practice.”
“This is now the third day AP reporters have been barred from covering the president — first as a member of the pool, and now from a formal press conference — an incredible disservice to the billions of people who rely on the Associated Press for nonpartisan news,” Pace wrote.
It’s not clear from the White House announcement Friday whether AP will be excluded from events with more expanded access like the Trump-Modi news conference.
The AP was founded in 1846 in New York by five newspapers to share the cost burden of covering the Mexican-American War.
