With significant international and domestic issues swirling like tornadoes across the globe, the kerfuffle over Donald Trump wanting to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” might seem trifling, a mere curiosity inspired by a nearly whimsical Troller-in-Chief.
But the debate reveals a great deal about the dusty, dying institutions that still try to call themselves “THE” press. In particular, it reveals the fact that many who still inhabit their ever-dwindling office space are consistent only in their shameful inconsistency.
Wendell Husebo reports for Breitbart that many in the ever-weaker pop press are considering a “boycott” of Trump Administration “events” in a show of “solidarity” over the AP-Trump-Gulf feud.
“Because the AP refuses to recognize the ‘Gulf of America’ as its official name, the White House barred its reporters from covering three events in the Oval Office, causing the AP to threaten legal action.”
One wonders if the AP gang will use any of the approximately $38.6 million in subscription cash the feds have handed them since 2017 to consult with those lawyers.
Do the dinosaur media members think it is uncouth to ask why the US government is buying subscriptions to the AP, or any other publication or “news” outlet, especially when, as Thomas Jefferson said:
“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
Indeed, how about we pare it down to:
“To compel a man is sinful and tyrannical.”
Because that sums it up, and these collectivist “journalists” have blown the bugles for just this kind of government compulsion as long as I have been alive.
But there’s an added atonal note when one looks at the AP resistance to Donald Trump’s preferred name for the Gulf.
The Associated Press since 2017 has made it “official style” policy for journalists who follow the “AP Style” for writing that it’s perfectly fine to use a plural pronoun to describe a single person, as some “gender” confused people desire.
Of course, that’s incorrect, and, as I have told students, if one thinks that the plural pronouns can be used for individual people, one will encounter the problem of reality when working in an emergency room taking patients from ambulances, or working as a police officer trying to hunt a suspect.
Precision is key, and, among key facts, emergency room workers have to know how many people are on their way and what sex they are. Police need to know how many suspects they are pursuing, and have to get as much detail about the suspect or suspects as possible.
Yet, the AP made this decision in 2017, inspired, in fact, by events from 2013.
“…(W)hen a former soldier and whistleblower named Bradley Manning wrote an open letter from prison in 2013, the issue went from the depths of the newsroom to wider prominence. Manning, who was serving his 35-year sentence in a male military prison at the time, wrote ‘My name is Chelsea Manning. I am female.’
Shortly after the letter was published, the Associated Press (AP) news agency issued a statement on AP journalists should report on Manning. It read: “The Associated Press will henceforth use Pvt. Chelsea E. Manning and female pronouns for the soldier formerly known as Bradley Manning, in accordance with her wishes to live as a woman.”
So, if the AP can engage in play-along with Manning and others who want to pretend to be something that reality clearly shows he is not, then why can’t the AP play along with Trump?
Related: New Reports Indicate Google-Youtube Manipulation of Search Results
Well, that question is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Because staff members at other dust-collecting “old media” relics are ready to harm themselves even more, in order to embrace this curious “stance” of the proven-malleable AP.
Husebo notes that CNN’s completely objective, very, very trustworthy Brian Stelter noticed the buzz among some colleagues:
“CNN’s Brian Stelter, who falsely claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation, wrote Friday that many of his media colleagues have suggested a ‘mass boycott’ of White House coverage, allowing ‘Breitbart … to take their places’…”
And, in fact, Stelter offered, in part:
“Many readers have asked me what other news outlets are doing to support The AP. Some have suggested a mass boycott is in order. Consider the possibility, however, that the Trump White House wants this fight. 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?
My sense is that The AP’s editors and their peers at other media institutions are having backchannel conversations about what to do. ‘We have to be strategic,’ one top editor told me, and keep covering the White House without just accepting how The AP is being treated.”
Does anyone recall how the federal government used its power to silence us?
Does anyone recall the FBI literally handing cash to the censorious Twitter after it purged posts about the Hunter Biden laptop, or how we at MRCTV, and reporters such as Michael Shellenberger, and Matt Taibbi have exposed federal funds going to censorship-pushing groups that have tried to silence us.
Did any of these AP “heroes” of journalism and free speech speak up when the Bidenistas were working to silence us and people like the signers of the Great Barrington Declaration?
Husebo adds:
“President Donald Trump designated the ‘Gulf of America’ name change in January, and Google Maps and Apple Maps updated their maps to reflect the new Gulf of America designation, but the AP remains stubborn.”
One need not agree with Trump or with the AP to note the hypocrisy of the AP when it comes to males pretending to be females and when it comes to agents of government trying to shape public perception.
Regardless of what one thinks of Trump’s notion, the double-standards of the AP and pop media figures who support their “stance” on what to call the gulf stand as their own testimony to pop media hypocrisy.
Of course, it’s possible that the leftist media members don’t even understand the meaning of the word “hypocrisy,” either.