The Associated Press (AP) has come under fire this week for maintaining a style guide that enforces far-left speech codes on political discourse.
The speech codes, which primarily target the topics of immigration, transgenderism, and race, recently came to light due to the AP’s feud with the White House.
The outlet refuses to recognize the “Gulf of America” as the official name after President Donald Trump’s declaration. In turn, the White House barred the outlet from White House events.
The AP, threatening to sue, claims the White House is abridging its First Amendment rights by cutting off their access. The establishment media are weighing whether or not to boycott White House events to support the AP.
“This isn’t just about the Gulf of America,” White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich told Axios on Monday. “This is about AP weaponizing language through their stylebook to push a partisan worldview in contrast with the traditional and deeply held beliefs of many Americans and many people around the world.”Below are nine words and phrases the AP uses to enforce political speech codes:
ONE: Warns against “all views” in transgender coverage: The guide says to “avoid false balance [by] giving a platform to unqualified claims or sources in the guise of balancing a story by including all views.”
“Do not use the term ‘transgenderism,’ which frames transgender identity as an ideology,” the guide demands.
TWO: Demands the use of “gender-affirming care”: The guide says to use the term to describe puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender-reassignment surgeries.
THREE: Opposes describing people by their biological sex: “Use the term sex assigned at birth instead of biological sex, birth gender, was identified at birth as, born a girl and the like,” the style guide states. “Avoid references to a transgender person being born a boy or girl, or phrasing like birth gender. Sex assigned at birth is the accurate terminology.”
“Since not all people fall under one of two categories for sex or gender — as in the cases of nonbinary and intersex people — avoid references to both, either or opposite sexes or genders,” according to the guide.
FOUR: Characterizes black people as “Black” people: “[W]hite people’s skin color plays into systemic inequalities and injustices, and we want our journalism to robustly explore those problems. But capitalizing the term white, as is done by white supremacists, risks subtly conveying legitimacy to such beliefs.”
FIVE: Reducing the use of the word “riot”: According to the style guide, “Focusing on rioting and property destruction rather than underlying grievance has been used in the past to stigmatize broad swaths of people protesting against lynching or police brutality or for racial justice, going back at least to the urban uprisings of the 1960s in the U.S.”
SIX: Downplaying the word “Hispanic”: “Hispanic refers to a person from — or whose ancestors were from — a Spanish-speaking land or culture. Latino, Latina, or Latinx are sometimes preferred. Follow the person’s preference. Use a more specific identification when possible, such as Cuban, Puerto Rican, or Mexican American.”
SEVEN: Disfavors use of “illegal immigrant”: The AP says, “Use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant.” Acceptable “variations include living in or entering a country illegally or without legal permission. For people: immigrants lacking permanent legal status.”
EIGHT: Cancels the term “anchor babies”: The guide claims it is “a pejorative term in the U.S. for children who are born to noncitizen parents wanting to take advantage of birthright citizenship.”
NINE: Disfavors the phrases “catch and release” and “chain migration”: The guide says, “Chain migration” is “vague and may imply unfettered immigration,” while “catch and release” is a “misleading and dehumanizing term.”
Take a look at what the AP is up to behind the scenes: pic.twitter.com/J1W3yPK6IM
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 14, 2025
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
