No TV news anchors or reporters used the term “Gulf of Mexico” – at least not on purpose – while covering the safe splashdown of long-stranded NASA astronauts, a review of transcripts from TV news organizations shows.
Former CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy pointed out the uniform omission in the Sunday edition of his newsletter Status.
“Not one of the outlets could muster the courage to simply refer to it as the Gulf of Mexico, the water feature’s name since the 16th century,” Darcy wrote. “Americans tend to believe the press is too independent and too proud to ever bow to government pressure. We assume that if a president ever tried to dictate language, the Fourth Estate would resist. We assume we’re immune from such pressures.”
In his biting essay, Darcy continued by saying “every channel danced around what precisely to call the body of water [the astronauts] splashed into. … television news organizations tied themselves in knots, performing linguistic gymnastics to stay out of Donald Trump’s crosshairs while also tiptoeing around audiences who would have surely been incensed to see them bend the knee and call it the ‘Gulf of America.’”
Darcy also analyzed the linguistics maneuvering of individual outlets. He found:
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“World News Tonight” anchor David Muir referred to “spectacular images from off the coast of Florida” on ABC.
“NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt described astronauts “splashing down off the Florida Gulf coast.”
“CBS Evening News” anchors stuck with “the Gulf.”
CNN anchor Jake Tapper noted that the U.S. government refers to it as the “Gulf of America,” with the caveat that the rest of the world calls it the Gulf of Mexico.
On MSNBC, NBC News correspondent Tom Costello talked about a “splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico” before correcting himself: “Sorry, however you want to call the Gulf. It will be splashing down in the Gulf.”
“Television news organizations have standards departments that think hard about these sorts of issues and issue guidance about the network’s positioning on them,” Darcy wrote. “In other words, each of the outlets made a willful decision to forgo referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of Mexico. While it may have been performed in a subtle manner, make no mistake: It was still an act of submission.”
Trump made a particular example of the Associated Press, kicking the legacy wire service out of official White House events earlier this year over its refusal to change its vaunted stylebook to “Gulf of America.”
“Executives at television news organizations may believe avoiding a term like Gulf of Mexico is a fairly harmless concession,” Darcy wrote. “But there is no such thing when dealing with language. When the battle is over what words are permitted to be used, cute linguistic gymnastics amount to a surrender. Words are the front lines of truth, and once they’re ceded, it becomes far easier for strongmen like Trump to shape reality.”
