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Bullies always look for ways to intimidate. That’s how they communicate, and that’s why The Associated Press was targeted by the White House to be excluded from briefings.

As often happens with political bullies, the reason for the action is a rash one, but the larger message it sends is profoundly dark and troubling.

Let’s suppose you were Merle Haggard, but the top dog in the recording industry decided one day for no reason other than childish petulance to change your name to Merle Smith, even though everyone in the entire world knows that your name is Merle Haggard.

Simple as that analogy may sound, it’s how the Gulf of Mexico became a hot topic because the top dog thought, “Hey, let’s change the name to Gulf of America.” So, in his mind, he changed the name.

The next morning, it was still the Gulf of Mexico pretty much everywhere except at the White House. Bullies don’t like resistance. The way they deal with that is to pick one kid out of the crowd on the playground and smack them upside the head in order to scare all the other kids into kowtowing to their whims.

The AP’s reporters continued reporting and writing based on the fact that the organization’s news reports go to outlets around the world, not just on computer screens at the White House. Around the world, it’s still the Gulf of Mexico. 

To understand this, it’s important to know something about The AP, where I spent 20 years working first as a desk editor, correspondent, then a bureau chief in three states and finally an executive at Rockefeller Plaza in New York. Along the way, I learned pretty much everything there was to know about being fair, accurate and balanced in news reporting.

The AP has a rich history, but it isn’t rich. It’s a not-for-profit news cooperative. For more than 170 years, its reporters and photographers have covered news around the world, from Mobile, Alabama, to Mozambique, East Africa. Mark Kellogg was the first AP correspondent to die in the line of duty. He was killed covering Custer’s Last Stand at Little Bighorn in 1876, but he was not the last AP staff member to die covering a war. Some were captured and held hostage and tortured over the years.

Stirring up dust or creating smoke to obscure what is happening is an ageless tactic. That’s what attempting to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico or making Canada the 51st state or taking Greenland were designed to do. News reporters are the eyes and ears of the public. Their job is to cut through the malarkey.

Politicians for ages have resisted the “intrusion” of news reporters. That pushback invariably is because they have something they don’t want the public to know.

The AP didn’t stop using the Gulf of Mexico because its reporting goes to cities and outposts around the world, although it did begin including a brief explanation in its stories that the White House now refers to it as the Gulf of America.

The White House exclusion of the AP is a clear violation of the First Amendment. Merrill Hartson, a friend with whom I worked in the AP trenches for years, was a White House and Washington correspondent for 40 years, covering the Ronald Reagan presidency and part of George Bush’s.

“At a time when conventional journalism is under unprecedented economic siege, efforts by the Trump White House to control, intervene in and sabotage a free press are particularly outrageous,” Hartson said when we communicated this week.

Our founders felt it so vital to protect freedom of speech, religion, the press, and to assemble and petition that they created the First Amendment first. It’s still vital.

Larry McDermott is a local retired farmer/journalist. Reach him at hardscrabblehollow@gmail.com