Axios Caves to Trump, Will Use His Preferred Terminology for the Gulf of Mexico
AP Photo/Ben Curtis
Axios announced that it will abide by President Donald Trump’s diktat that changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”
The White House is taking the change quite seriously, as it has banned the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One because the news organization still refers to the body of water below the southeastern U.S. as the Gulf of Mexico. For their part, Google Maps and Apple Maps now use the term “Gulf of America” on maps for U.S.-based users.
On Friday night, Axios tweeted that it would use Trump’s preferred name for the gulf.
“Our top priority at Axios is to provide readers with clinical, fact-based reporting,” the outlet wrote. “Our standard is to use ‘Gulf of America (renamed by U.S. from Gulf of Mexico)’ in our reporting because our audience is mostly U.S.-based compared to other publishers with international audiences.”
Incredibly, in the next sentence, Axios said government should not dictate the editorial decisions of news organizations.
“At the same time, the government should never dictate how any news organization makes editorial decisions,” the tweet continued. “The AP and all news organizations should be free to report as they see fit. This is a bedrock of a free press and durable democracy.”
That sentiment rang hollow as far as some users were concerned, as they expressed their displeasure in the replies and via quote tweet. “We’re capitulating but we don’t like it,” one user wrote, as if to translate Axios’s tweet.
Despite the White House banning the AP from the Oval Office and Air Force One, other news organizations have continued participating in press events in those venues.
“Consider the possibility that the Trump White House WANTS this fight,” CNN media reporter Brian Stelter said a couple of hours before the Axios announcement. “Wants journalists to act like opponents instead of observers. If the entire press pool skipped a Trump photo op in solidarity with The AP, wouldn’t the White House welcome Breitbart and One America News to take their places?”
As with Axios, Stelter’s post was roundly ridiculed.
