Here’s one that’s a little hard even for media folks to figure. Out of the blue, the Associated Press quietly issued a new style rule that took effect at 3 a.m. Nov. 14. As a result of this 3 a.m. call, the AP will sound a more formal tone when referring to the president of the United States for the first time in its news reports.
No more “President Bush this” or “President Bush that” when AP copy in America — whether written for broadcast, print or online — initially mentions the holder of the nation’s highest office.
What the style change we can believe in really means, as of Barack Obama’s inauguration Jan. 20, is: “President Obama this” or “President Obama that” won’t be good enough. Too traditional.
News organizations affiliated with AP — as well as the declining numbers of corporate and freelance scribes who look to the AP Stylebook as ultimate arbiter of style and usage — will be proper only if they write “President Barack Obama” when first mentioning the leader of the free world.
Got that? First and last name, ladies and gentlemen of the mainstream media. And you know how they already love to call the president-elect simply “Barack.”
“Well, there they go again,” critics will say. Those carping skeptics will glom on to this historic change as the latest example of the news media’s lovesick casting of Obama as an exceptional being.
In what one AP reporter called a “cryptic” advisory Nov. 12 on the wire service’s Web site, AP media relations director Paul Colford wrote:
The Associated Press is adopting a universal style for referring to all heads of state, including the United States. Effective Thursday at 3 a.m. EST, the AP will use the title and first and family names on first reference: President George W. Bush, not just President Bush; President-elect Barack Obama, not just President-elect Obama; President Nicolas Sarkozy, not just President Sarkozy.
So, what the change actually represents is the media’s further discarding of American exceptionalism in favor of an international standard — a sort of global test, to use John Kerry’s memorable phrase. Despite the implication of the French example cited above, AP style until now had required first and last name on first reference for all heads of state except the American president.
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