As every self-respecting copy editor knows – and as every writer and reader ought to know – style is politics, and politics inform style. As such it’s no surprise that Wednesday the Associated Press’ Stylebook announced would no longer head its stories from Crimea with datelines from Ukraine, eg “Sevastopol, Ukraine”. Their reasoning: “Ukraine no longer controls Crimea, and AP datelines should reflect the facts on the ground.” True enough, but also a little disingenuous: AP won’t be writing “Sevastopol, Russia”, even though Russia clearly controls the situation on the ground, and Tuesday said it would annex the region regardless of Ukraine and western nations’ refusal to recognize the new treaty.  AP, ever striving for neutrality, tries to get away with justifying the change by geography, and the new dateline “Sevastopol, Crimea”.  Why not “Sevastopol, Russia” if Russia formalizes its annexation of the territory? The reason is that Crimea is geographically distinct from Russia; they have no land border. Saying just the city name and “Crimea” in the dateline, even in the event of full annexation, would be consistent with how we handle geographically separate parts of other countries. For instance, we just say “Sicily” and “Sardinia” in datelines — “Palermo, Sicily” – even though they are part of Italy, and “Guadeloupe” in datelines even though that island is part of France.  The problem with this retroactive application of a policy is that Italy controls Sicily and France controls Guadeloupe, raising the more appropriate question of “Why now?”, which is obviously answered by the fact that Crimea is contested land, and AP would rather not side with anyone involved. Again, fair enough, but why not just say so? (The New York Times has also apparently changed its style for Crimea: a story from before the referendum and annexation says “Ukraine”, three days later a story reads “Crimea”. The Guardian sticks to cities alone unless the location is relatively obscure.)  AP has waded into controversy before on its quest to avoid controversy. A year ago, AP banned “illegal immigrant” and “illegal” to describe a person, explaining that “‘illegal’ should describe only an action”, especially as the editors decided it was important not to label people, “instead of behavior”. Like the Guardian, AP promptly announced it would refer to Chelsea Manning with female pronouns and her chosen name, by the tried and true rule of “Use the pronoun preferred by the individual … if that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.” AP even (and wisely) applies the rule to transliteration, a style point notoriously inconsistent among news organizations.  By the same token, AP was right on time with its new dateline for South Sudan when it gained independence in 2011; go by what a nation’s people prefer. But when it’s unclear who’s in charge, or what may come, or how geopolitical powers will tussle over occupation and referendums, etc, copy editors would really rather just stay out of it. So the AP resorts to geography whenever it fears a kerfuffle, writing “Bethlehem, West Bank” and just “Jerusalem”; it’s just “Stanley, Falkland Islands” and “Taipei, Taiwan”. Based on the history of those territorial disputes, it seems AP’s copy editors – and those at the majority of American publications which rely on AP for guidance – are settling in for the long haul with Crimea.
AP says new Crimea dateline is consistent with style guide for territories that are ‘geographically distinct’ such as Sicily