I'm bothered by the national press corps' collective lack of respect for the
Office of the President of the United States.
As Lisa Grotts wrote for HuffPost in 2013,
"The president should be addressed as President Obama
or Mr. President." Ms. Grotts was correct:
The Emily Post Institute notes the proper spoken greeting for the current President is "Mr. /
Madam President."
As Robert Hickey points out, those rules are for manner of direct address; in other words,
those are rules for when one is speaking to the President of the United States.
Hickey, in
response to a reader on this topic, writes:
In the media the journalists are referring to The President in the third person in a story ... so they will refer to him in various ways so who they are talking about is clear to the listener.
You'll hear:
Donald Trump
President Trump
Trump
Mr. Trump
These are not forms of address ... for which there are rules. In direct address a president is addressed as
Mr. President
His given name or surname is not used in his presence.
Listen to a White House news conference, and all the reporters address him as Mr. President.
White House staff refer to him as The President ... which makes sense since he is the only President to them! But on the evening news they may refer to several presidents ... the president of the United States ... the president of British Petroleum ... the president of a national association.
Personally, I find references to the President of the United States only by surname to be
irksome.
I think this all gained traction in the days of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden... People sorta
got hung up on the similarities of "Osama" and "Obama," and so reference to the President
by only his surname became popular. Plus, I recall POTUS 44 wasn't loved by all, so perhaps
there was also some tendency to omit his title when referring to him.
That practice seems to have continued, with nobody in the press (that I've observed to date)
referring to President Trump by title or even by "Mr." If you look back at the other blog
posts I've made concerning his administration, you'll notice I've preceded at least the
initial reference to the current President with his title.
Look, press: Regardless of whom you voted for in the election, Mr. Trump IS the President
of the United States. IMHO, you don't get to leave the title off of his name just because
he has a white hot hatred of the press and for Saturday Night Live.
Please offer respect to at least the office if not the man.