The relationship between the Trump administration and the American press reached another breaking point Monday morning when CNN, MS NOW, and Politico jointly sued the administration after being barred from the White House, the people’s house.
The three news organizations argue that the ban violates their First Amendment rights and prevents them from doing something that is central to journalism: reporting on the government that represents the public. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., also raises Fifth Amendment concerns over the lack of due process in removing the journalists’ access. The outlets are asking the court to restore their access to the White House.
The legal questions surrounding press access are not entirely new. In Sherrill v. Knight, a 1977 case decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, journalist Robert Sherrill challenged the denial of his White House press pass. The court held that when the White House makes press facilities available to journalists, access cannot be denied randomly or for less-than-compelling reasons. It also found that journalists denied access must receive notice of the factual basis for the denial, an opportunity to respond, and a final written explanation.
The ban came after President Donald Trump announced Friday that CNN, MS NOW, and Politico would no longer be permitted inside the White House. Trump has accused the organizations of producing what he calls “fake news,” and has defended the decision as a response to their coverage. The three outlets, however, argue that the government cannot remove journalists from access to the Presidency simply because it disagrees with what they report.
The dispute grew larger Monday when other television networks refused to replace CNN in the White House press pool.
ABC, CBS, Fox News, and NBC typically rotate responsibility for providing the television pool feed of presidential events. CNN was scheduled to provide that coverage Monday, but after the White House prevented the network from doing so, the other networks declined to take its place. Instead, the television pool announced that it would not provide coverage of presidential events.
The decision was significant because the networks were not simply choosing whether to cover a particular speech or event. They were responding to a question about who gets to participate in the process of covering the president in the first place.
That question extends beyond Washington.
At the College, students participate in journalism through organizations like The Colby Echo and WMHB 89.7 FM, learning how to report on institutions, administrators, and people in positions of authority. The scale is obviously different from covering the White House, but the underlying responsibility is similar: journalists are expected to ask questions, verify information, and report what they find, even when the subject of that reporting may not like the result.
For student journalists, the White House dispute makes the First Amendment feel less like something confined to a textbook and more like something that affects the work sitting in front of them.
A campus reporter may not be standing outside the White House with a press pass, but they still have to consider what happens when access becomes conditional. What happens when an institution decides which questions it wants to answer? What happens when criticism affects a journalist’s ability to report?
Those questions are at the center of the lawsuit filed Monday.
The case will ultimately require a federal court to determine the constitutional limits of the administration’s decision. But regardless of its outcome, the events of Monday demonstrate how quickly a dispute between a government and several news organizations can become a broader debate about the role of journalism itself.
For student journalists at the College, that debate is not particularly distant. It is part of the same responsibility that comes with picking up a dictaphone, opening a notebook, and deciding that a question is worth asking.
~ Mia Dinunzio `28
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