Trump Could Be Changing Media Laws & Ethics

President Donald J. Trump speaks to members of the public and media Oct. 11, 2017, in an aircraft hangar at the 193rd Special Operations Wing, Middletown, Pennsylvania. The president discussed his plans for tax reform at the event. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Tony Harp/Released)

Upon being sworn in to office on Jan. 20, 2025, for his second term as President of the United States, Donald Trump took immediate steps to implement his policies. For the Associated Press, failing to comply with his demands lead to their immediate removal from the White House Press Pool. The marks a historic shift in how free speech & media ethics are recognized in the United States.

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AP's Freedom of Press Violated

In this April 18, 2017, file photo, people walk by Associated Press photographs on display at The AP headquarters in New York. The Associated Press changed its influential style guide Friday, June 19, 2020, to capitalize the “b” in the term Black when referring to people, weighing in on a hotly debated issue. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)

Following Executive Order 14172, which renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, the Associated Press made it very clear that they would continue to call the body of water in question the Gulf of Mexico, which resulted in a notice from the White House, stating if the "AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office." 

A statement written and released by AP Executive Editor Julie Pace stated that "limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment."

All of this has been a departure from tradition. At the beginning of Trump’s second term, his administration stated "that it would start choosing which journalists participate in the press pool, breaking from a nearly century-old tradition in which the independent White House Correspondents’ Association organized the pool." Decisions like these have made many Americans question the future of freedom of the press and media ethics in the United States.

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Gulf Of Mexico To Gulf of America

(Susan Walsh / AP file)

This situation with the AP being banned from the White House press pool started after President Trump signed Executive Order 14172, Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness. It reads that the Secretary of the Interior should:

Take all appropriate actions to rename as the “Gulf of America” the U.S. Continental Shelf area bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba in the area formerly named as the Gulf of Mexico.

Though this executive order was based on renaming, it became a media ethics issue indirectly. The lines have been blurred, and questions have been raised about how far the president should be allowed to go in terms of infringing on the freedom of the press that organizations across the United States are entitled to.

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The Future Of US Media Laws & Ethics

(A surveillance camera is seen in front of the Google China headquarters in Beijing, China. Associated Press / AP Images)

The future of US media-government relations has been called into question in recent months. President Trump and members of his administration are "undermining the role of independent journalism in their key function of holding power to account."  It has brought into question what the future will hold for media rights in the country going forward.

In a world where "journalism is intended to benefit the public", the decisions that have been made by the Trump administration are, in the eyes of many, illegal, including the Associated Press, who filed a lawsuit against "White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich and press secretary Karoline Leavitt", citing freedom of speech and freedom of press violations.

Time will tell if the lawsuit will be successful. If the Trump administration were to win, the future of the relationship between the press and the government could be negatively affected. Whether or not this happens for sure remains to be seen, as the legal process plays itself out.