News Platforms Urge Trump to Drop AP Ban

This week, numerous prominent news organizations, such as CNN, The Washington Post, and Fox News, sent a letter to the White House, pressing the Trump administration to promptly remove its ban on The Associated Press. The news outlet had been barred from attending several official press events in the preceding week.

According to the White House, it has excluded reporters from The Associated Press because the outlet uses "Gulf of Mexico" in its articles instead of "Gulf of America," as mandated by an executive order issued by President Trump on January 20.

The letter, organized by the White House Correspondents' Association and submitted on Monday, bore the signatures of 40 media outlets. It characterized the barring of The Associated Press as "an escalation of a disagreement that benefits neither the presidency nor the public."

"The First Amendment forbids the government from dictating how news organizations make editorial choices," the letter stated. "Any effort to penalize journalists for those choices constitutes a grave violation of this constitutional safeguard."

The media newsletter Status initially reported on the letter. Among the signatories were mainstream media outlets like The New York Times, NBC, and The Wall Street Journal, as well as conservative outlets such as Fox and Newsmax.

A Newsmax spokesman remarked, "We can empathize with President Trump's vexation, as the media has frequently treated him unjustly, but Newsmax nonetheless upholds The AP's right, as a private entity, to employ the terminology it prefers in its coverage. We are concerned that a future administration might disapprove of Newsmax's content and attempt to prohibit us."

The White House and the White House Correspondents' Association did not immediately reply to requests for comment.