The Gulf Between Trump and the Press

When President Trump signed an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” back in January, I couldn’t stop thinking about a scene from the 2004 teen classic Mean Girls, in which queen bee Regina George snaps at Gretchen Weiner, her underling, for trying to make the word fetch a synonym for cool. (“Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen!” Regina says. “It’s not going to happen!”) That’s about how seriously I took Executive Order 14172, even after both Google Maps and Apple Maps instituted the change, at least for US users. The Associated Press, it seems, was on the same page as me: two days after the order was signed, the agency issued an update to its stylebook—which is widely followed throughout the news business—recommending the continued use of the original name, though it would acknowledge the new name as well. “Trump’s order only carries authority within the United States. Mexico, as well as other countries and international bodies, do not have to recognize the name change,” the AP reasoned in an announcement about the decision. “As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.” (In the same executive order, Trump changed the official name of Denali, a peak in Alaska that had been renamed in 2015 to align with local tradition, to “Mount McKinley.” The AP said that it would adopt this change, since the area is solely within the US and Trump therefore has authority over it.)