So says Matt Taibbi, who scoffs -- as I did yesterday -- at the idea that the White House owes the Associated Press a seat on Air Force One or in the briefing room. Jim Acosta wants a media boycott over the "unconstitutional restrictions" Donald Trump placed on the AP over the Gulf of Mexico spat. I responded as what my pal Adam Baldwin calls a 'ritual benediction' of sorts before getting to the meat of the matter:

Is the Gulf of America née Mexico fight with the AP petty? Yes. Is it provocative? Sure. Is it stupid? I wouldn't go that far, but of all the issues on my priority list, the "Gulf of America" ranks around 14,383rd, its estimated top depth. (That's from the Encyclopedia Brittanica, which wisely uses both names in its listing. Maybe they can take the AP seat on the plane!) 

That misses the point, Taibbi argued in an excellent essay earlier today. The Associated Press has long engaged in this very kind of petty language policing, often in deliberately provocative and political ways. And the outcomes of such language policing have usually been stupid, too:

“Telling the public and the press what words to use.” Right.

People are claiming the White House is bullying the AP and repeating this saw that Trump is telling them “what words to use.” If you don’t see the irony, you’ve never used the AP stylebook[.] ...

Lately, it morphed into more of a “reference” book that resembled the old NIH style guides on “person-first destigmatizing language” (which AP endorses) that instructed you to write things like person with cancer instead of cancer patient. The NIH guides were infurating because almost they quickly became more about authority than usage, often encouraging use of terms (e.g. vulnerable or marginalized community) only to tell you a year later that Groups that have been socially marginalized is now preferable. The AP has been doing the same thing for years.

Decades, actually, and so has the progressive clique in Academia and the media. Americans who fall one step behind on the constant terminology changes for "sensitivity" get shredded for being revanchists, bigots, misogynists, or Nazifasciststinkybottomists -- basically the "ist" du jour. And the Associated Press plays a very large role in policing media and newsmakers over a constant rotation of acceptable terms. 

Taibbi provides examples of this in his thoroughly enjoyable essay, which is mainly behind a firewall, and so I am loath to excerpt much more of it. However, Taibbi does link to a Poynter article last year that cheered on the AP for its efforts to completely rewrite 'acceptable' terminology relating to criminal justice reporting. By requiring member media orgs to adhere to their new standards, Kelly McBride assured readers that the AP would force news outlets to "replac[e] cheap stories about shootings and stabbings with data-rich narratives that educate communities and hold cops accountable."

What powerful changes would accomplish this? Er ...

• Eliminate all forms of the word “slay” and “slain” when it comes to covering murder and homicide. Only journalists use those words to reference killing people.
• Avoid using “juvenile” and “minor” because they are bureaucratic language that dehumanizes people. Instead, just say “child” or “teenager.”
• Put the person in front of the condition. So instead of calling someone a “felon” or a “convict” or a “murderer,” use the condition as a dependent clause, as in, “John Doe, who has been convicted of a felony.” (This now includes references to former President Donald Trump.)
• It is now OK to use the term “assault rifle” or “assault weapon” on first reference, but reporters are encouraged to be more specific as well.

Slay, kween! Oops!

The problem with these new demands is that the replaced words are the correct legal terms for crime stories. The legal status for children and most teenagers is "juveniles." Statutes relating to criminal status refer to felons and convicts, not "dudes with a felony conviction." Slay and slain may not be legal terms, but they are perfectly clear in meaning and universally understood. And why would these terms be less offensive than murder and homicide, or 'kill' and 'killed'?

Meanwhile, the AP approves the term "assault weapon," while conceding in the same breath that it doesn't have an actual definition. 

In fact, one of the most outrageous examples of this is the phrase "illegal alien." A couple of decades ago, the AP began pushing people to use "illegal immigrant," and when that sounded too judgmental, it changed to "undocumented immigrant" and then "undocumented worker." Taibbi also notes that the AP also revised that to "immigrants lacking permanent legal status," and now allows "illegal immigration" but not "illegal immigrant." 

Meanwhile, the proper term in US statutes is ... "illegal alien." 

There are endless examples of this constant term-shifting at the AP and elsewhere. That's been true of racial and demographic classifications over the last several decades, but especially the last few years. You can no longer write black but must use Black, and Hispanic has been discouraged in favor of Latinx. Homeless people should now be unhoused persons, lest the social-misery condition be addressed in terms that might sound negative. And so on. 

All of this would be hilarious if it weren't so insidious, thanks to the leverage the AP uses to enforce it. That enforcement is the reason McBride saluted changes to criminal justice terminology, because she assumed it would change news coverage and reporting through such enforcement. The AP exists as a network of media orgs that contribute to AP's publication platform, and then share whatever the AP will push out over "the wire," to use an old term. The AP can choose not to publish material that doesn't adhere to its style "guide," which means that its members have a big financial incentive to comply with the AP's demands. 

And that's why Taibbi scoffs at the Associated Press' complaints about the Trump White House enforcing its own terminology usage. The AP and the Left have been doing the exact same thing for decades in pursuit of blatantly partisan and ideological outcomes. Trump has hoisted them by their own petard -- and it turns out they don't like it much.