Good Night, Associated Press
So passes Denethor, son of Ecthelion.
The Associated Press refuses to use the term “Gulf of America” when referring to the Gulf of Mexico. In doing so, they’ve lost their privileged status as the premier news organization reporting from the White House.
It’s a silly hill to die on, but also revealing.
Silly, because the AP Stylebook—the guide most journalists use when writing—declared in 2017 that the word “they” could be used as a singular pronoun. A move that effectively ended their long run as the standard-bearer of proper grammar.
Revealing, because this was a losing fight from the start. Maybe they didn’t realize it. Maybe their legacy status messed with their minds. It wouldn’t be the first time a group of journalists thought they were bigger than the story. I don’t buy it myself. I think they were trying to play the martyr/victim card, which is just as delusional. There’s got to be some public sympathy for that card to work, and the legacy media has lost all of that.
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