The Associated Press has been indefinitely barred from the Oval Office and Air Force One due to a naming dispute over the Gulf of Mexico, now referred to as the Gulf of America by the Trump administration. This decision marks a significant escalation in the four-day standoff between the White House and the AP, which has refused to comply with the rebranding.

At the heart of the issue lies the AP’s stance on referring to the body of water, which has been known as the Gulf of Mexico for centuries. The news agency has opted to continue using the original name, citing its global audience and the fact that many countries have not recognised the new name. This decision has drawn ire from the White House, which views the AP’s stance as a deliberate attempt to undermine the administration’s authority.

Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich took to X to express his disapproval, stating, “While their right to irresponsible and dishonest reporting is protected by the First Amendment, it does not ensure their privilege of unfettered access to limited spaces, like the Oval Office and Air Force One.” He further emphasised that the space would now be opened up to thousands of other reporters who have been barred from covering these areas of the administration.

In response, AP spokeswoman Lauren Easton emphasised the importance of freedom of speech, stating, “”Freedom of speech is a pillar of American democracy and a core value of the American people. The White House has said it supports these principles. The actions taken to restrict AP’s coverage of presidential events because of how we refer to a geographic location chip away at this important right enshrined in the US Constitution for all Americans.”

The AP’s influential stylebook has advised using both the original name, Gulf of Mexico, and the new name, Gulf of America, within the United States. This approach is in line with the agency’s commitment to accuracy and fairness in reporting.

Interestingly, other news organisations have taken varying approaches to the naming dispute. The New York Times and Washington Post have opted to primarily use the original name, Gulf of Mexico, while Fox News has switched to using Gulf of America.

The White House’s decision to bar the AP from the Oval Office and Air Force One has significant implications for press freedom and access to information.
 

A voter deposits his voting machine activation card in a box after casting his ballot at a polling site at Henderson City Hall in Henderson, Nevada on November 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Donald Trump has returned to power in the United States following a decisive win in both the popular vote and electoral college vote in the presidential elections. This emphatic win made it easy for journalists to cover the results. It was clear fairly early during the counting process that Mr. Trump was going to win the election and also sweep the ‘swing States’.

This is in marked contrast to the 2020 election, which was full of controversies, both manufactured and real. A staggering number of Americans cast their ballots before voting day in that election, held during the COVID-19 pandemic; this stretched the counting process by days. Mr. Trump lost, but refused to concede the election to Joe Biden. The results were much closer than what the opinion polls had anticipated. The slow counting process strained the coverage.

In the U.S., on counting day, data is provided by the news agency, Associated Press (AP), and a few others. This means that the result is “called” by media outlets, which estimate the chances of a candidate winning a State based on trends that are available from this data. While the U.S. Federal Election Commission monitors implementation of campaign finance laws and the conduct of federal elections, it does not provide live electoral data. This is either collated by agencies such as AP, and released to subscribers via an Application Programming Interface, or is provided by each respective State, mostly by their Secretaries of State.

This is unlike the process in India, where the Election Commission of India (ECI) provides live counting data for each constituency, whether Assembly or parliamentary. Media outlets, especially television journalists, also use agencies or their own reporters to provide information on trends from counting centres. However, these are not always accurate. The slower and steadier trends that trickle in from the ECI website, which are authenticated by polling agents at counting centres, give media outlets and the general public a clear picture on electoral trends. The structured manner in which the ECI presents its results also helps media outlets and data enthusiasts, such as those in The Hindu, to parse that information and present it separately with more granular information. This includes, for instance, data on rural and urban voting trends across States.

While U.S. news agencies and media outlets are efficient in presenting results, the situation in India is different: the information is not available to only a select few outlets, and is collated and displayed in a structured manner by the ECI for anyone to use. The ECI also presents ‘deep-dive data’ — for instance, information from polling booths on how voters choose their candidates. It also provides Assembly segment-wise data for parliamentary constituencies. While this information is uploaded onto the website after a lag — it can take a few weeks after results are announced — the fact that it is made available is useful for social scientists and journalists to analyse the results even further, long after the excitement over elections dies down.

For a data journalist, the Indian model of providing electoral results via a public authority works much better than the American one. In recent years, the ECI has received a lot of flak for various issues, such as the robustness of the Electronic Voting Machines (an overblown controversy), the patchy implementation of the Model Code of Conduct (a legitimate criticism), the dilation of the voting process in some States (unavoidable in a few cases), and the relative laxity in regulating campaign expenditure (which is becoming a problem). But what must be appreciated by publicly minded people in India is that the ECI releases structured voting data in a transparent, timely, and efficient manner.

srinivasan.vr@thehindu.co.in