One of President Donald Trump’s first orders of business upon taking office this week involved naming, or more accurately renaming, Mount McKinley.
The nation’s tallest mountain had been renamed Denali by Barack Obama, and Trump’s executive order restored its earlier moniker.
A statement from the Associated Press, which sets the standards for countless newsrooms, acknowledged the president’s authority and confirmed it would be using the name Mount McKinley in future coverage.
According to The Hill :
In the case of the Alaskan mountain, the AP said it would use the official name change initiated by Trump on Monday.
Former President Obama changed the name of the country’s highest mountain to reflect the name used by Native Americans, Denali. It was previously named after former President McKinley.
“The area lies solely in the United States and as president, Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names within the country,” the AP said.
Trump’s decision to restore the mountain’s name was met with praise by many of his supporters:
Another notable name change, however, will not be making it into AP coverage, per Politico :
But it’s not a total stylebook victory for Trump. The large body of water at the U.S. southern border will remain as the Gulf of Mexico, the AP announced. The reason is all about jurisdiction. Where the mountain is firmly on U.S. land and its federal geographic name is under the president’s purview, the Gulf shares borders with Mexico, where Trump doesn’t have jurisdiction.
“The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years,” the AP’s Amanda Barrett, the vice president of standards and inclusion at the wire service, wrote.“The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.”
The publication said the Gulf isn’t the only body of water that carries multiple names. The Gulf of California is called the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, and AP uses both. “The AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences,” she wrote.
The AP Stylebook is a widely used resource in newsrooms across the country, and is seen as the industry standard for grammar and stylistic choices. The publication itself is read in over 100 countries with nearly 45 million monthly users.
Here’s some additional coverage of Trump’s order renaming the Gulf of Mexico:
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