Trump's Gulf of Mexico rebrand caused chaos in agency tasked with explaining it: 'Do not respond at all' [View all]

Source: msn/The Independent

11h


President Donald Trump’s directive to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America sparked chaos within the agency that was tasked with explaining it, according to a new report. Trump announced the name change on January 7, just weeks before his inauguration. This triggered a whirlwind of questions from reporters directed at the U.S. Geological Survey, the agency responsible for the country’s geographic names, the media outlet NOTUS reports.

Agency staff were just as curious as reporters about the potential renaming, according to NOTUS. But Michael Tischler, director of the agency’s National Geospatial Program, told staff that the public affairs office instructed them not to respond to journalists’ questions. “I don’t mean ‘...has no comment at this time…,’ I mean do not respond at all,” Tischler wrote in a January 7 message reviewed by NOTUS.

Agency staff, including Tischler, even discussed the policy with the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names. Their discussion came after a reporter asked the United Nations group how the rest of the world might respond to the name change. The United Nations group discussed a potential statement in response, but it appears it was never released, according to NOTUS. Tischler informed the group that his agency was not responding to any media requests.

When Trump made the change official, even Tischler himself was wondering how the name change would work in practice. In an email to the State Department, Tischler wrote: “Does this definition constitute the entire Gulf? Or are we going to splitting [sic] the feature into two — Gulf of Mexico in the southern portion and Gulf of America in the northern portion?” Society of Professional Journalists Executive Director Caroline Hendrie told NOTUS that the agency was “stonewalling” journalists amid the chaos. “It’s unacceptable for public officials, particularly those in communications roles funded by taxpayers, to adopt a deliberate strategy of ignoring journalists’ requests,” she said.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/other/trump-s-gulf-of-mexico-rebrand-caused-chaos-in-agency-tasked-with-explaining-it-do-not-respond-at-all/ar-AA1J4NB6