Is it Burma or Myanmar?
Media confusion continued this week in identifying the often-in-the-news southeast Asia nation, this time in connection with its government ending direct media censorship, notes Grumpy Editor.
Labeling it as Myanmar were the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, among others.
Going with Burma included the Washington Post and Associated Press.
AP seems as confused in identifying the country as some other news outlets.
That’s because AP adopted Myanmar into its 2006 Stylebook after weighing such factors as widespread international use and its recognition by the United Nations.
The New York Times began referring to Myanmar in 1989, the year the country’s name officially was changed.
Some media solve the country’s identification in news stories with phrases “Burma, also known as Myanmar” or “Myanmar, also known as Burma.”
The country was a province of British India from 1886 to 1937, then a separate crown colony from 1937 to 1948. After a military coup, the ruling regime renamed the country Myanmar in 1989. Opposition groups in the country continued to refer to Burma.
U.S. old timers, war veterans and historians remember the China-Burma-India theater of operations during World War II. The famous Burma Road was constructed to supply Chinese forces in the fight against Japan during World War II.
The periodically-seen (on TV) 1945 movie, “Objective, Burma!” starring Errol Flynn, was a highly rated WWII thriller depicting a company of U.S. paratroopers assigned to wipe out an enemy post.
That film wouldn’t sound right as “Objective, Myanmar!”
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