War Of Words: ‘Gulf’ Widens Between Trump And The Press

A three-word reference to a body of water is the source of a Constitutional showdown.

Power of the press: History has shown that regime change efforts often begin with curtailing press freedoms.

So it’s come to this: a key battle over the White House’s aggressive effort to increase executive power beyond any previous boundaries in American history is being waged in court now over a three-word reference to the body of water between Mexico and the Florida Keys known since 1540 as the Gulf of Mexico.

How fitting that by executive order President Trump last month renamed that area the “Gulf of America,” a phrase that all too well defines the current state of our country. Indeed, we are experiencing the “gulf” – defined in the dictionary as “chasm, a widening separation” – of America, between a president whose goal is to overturn the Constitution’s limits of his office and those who insist on maintaining democracy’s rule of law.

The war of words began after the Associated Press chose not to change its style guide and to continue referring to the “Gulf of Mexico,” citing worldwide acceptance of the terminology “while acknowledging the new name President Trump has chosen.”

In response, the administration has banned Associated Press reporters from White House press events, the president’s plane and the Oval Office.

The AP fought back and is suing the administration, asserting that it is in violation of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech and the rights of the press by “coercing journalists to report the news using only government-approved speech.” The AP suit said the administration’s ban was “a threat to every American freedom.”

A White House spokesman said the AP’s action was “frivolous and demented” and “a blatant PR stunt.” The administration said it was targeting the AP because its style guide “is used by many as a standard for writing and editing,” widely followed by other news organizations around the country.

Fortunately, a number of media companies, including Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, have backed the AP by signing a letter calling on the White House to drop its ban.

It would be satisfying to see the mainstream press agree to stop covering the president altogether, even for a few days, particularly since Trump thrives on attention, even if it’s negative. Such a blackout would drive home the power of the press. But then the president would be able to continue his assault on the Constitution in the dark. Or he would turn to one of the many media outlets that thrive on boosting his messages rather than striving for balanced coverage. Either way, the result would be the absence of holding him and his actions to the scrutiny of the public, which is the purpose of a free press.

Thomas Jefferson, writing in 1787 on the importance of an independent press to keep the government in check, famously asserted that if he had to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to choose the latter.”

Less known is that Jefferson followed that sentence with this one: “But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”

His message rings true even more today, 238 years later: An independent press is vital to democracy, but only if it’s read, taken seriously and acted upon.