Fox News And Newsmax Among News Outlets Urging White House To Lift Ban On Associated Press Over Continued References To “Gulf of Mexico”

deadline.com:

Fox News and Newsmax are among the outlets who are urging the Trump administration to lift a ban on the Associated Press from accessing certain White House events, a punishment imposed on the wire service for failing to change references of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

A number of news outlets signed on to a letter sent by the White House Correspondents’ Association, and Fox News and Newsmax were among those urging that the AP be reinstated.

Status newsletter first reported on the letter. Fox News has not commented. Newsmax said in a statement, “We can understand President Trump’s frustration because the media has often been unfair to him, but Newsmax still supports the AP’s right, as a private organization, to use the language it wants to use in its reporting.

We fear a future administration may not like something Newsmax writes and seek to ban us. This is why news organizations like Newsmax and Fox News are supporting the AP’s First Amendment rights though we may disagree with its editorial point of view from time to time.” Meanwhile, the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press has sent its own letter to Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff. “Conditioning pool access to White House events on the editorial decisions of any news organization violates First Amendment principles,” according to the letter. “All news organizations covering the White House are negatively affected when one peer outlet is singled out in a manner that crosses a constitutional line.