The White House announced yesterday that there will be unprecedented changes to press access within the White House.
The White House press secretary Karoline Leavett held the briefing and announced the news.
“Moving forward, the White House Press Pool will be determined by the White House Press team,” said Leavett.
This is the most recent update in a saga of free speech controversies under the Trump Administration. Previously, the Pentagon announced it would be rotating which news outlets had access to in-house press offices, changing out legacy media like NBC and the New York Times for pro-Trump outlets like One America News Network and Breitbart. Now the same will happen with the White House.
It’s a radical departure from tradition that takes control of media access from the independent White House Correspondents Association -- and gives it directly to the Trump White House. Here’s Trump’s press secretary again:
“So by deciding which outlets make up the limited press pool on a day to day basis, the White House will be restoring the power back to the American people who President Trump was elected to serve,” said Leavett.
President Trump also recently banned the Associated Press from Air Force One and the Oval Office for refusing to change their style guide to recommend the “Gulf of America,” rather than the “Gulf of Mexico.” Trump insisted upon the name change upon taking office.
“Asking the President of the United States questions in the Oval Office and aboard Air Force One is a privilege granted to journalists, not a legal right,” said The White House on its website. “We stand by our decision to hold the Fake News accountable for their lies.”
These two recent moves against the press have raised questions about threats to the first Amendment. According to the U.S. constitution, the first amendment states that, “Congress shall not prohibit freedom of speech -- or freedom of the press.”
Former White House correspondent and current USC Annenberg professor Sam Youngman is concerned about what the White House’s actions mean.
“It’s been a rough week for the First Amendment. It’s been a rough week for people like me who hold the press dear and believe it has a vital, critical role to play in American democracy,” said Youngman. “What we’re seeing is the erosion of press freedom here in the United States, the kind of thing that we’d be appalled if we saw it happen in another country, and now it’s happening here.”
Youngman is deeply concerned about what this means for the future of a free press in this country.
“I certainly hope this will be the motivation the White House press needs, or really, beltway reporters in general, need to start standing up for themselves and start standing up for the truth,” said Youngman.
Questions have also been raised about the legality of the White House’s actions. The AP filed a lawsuit against White House officials, claiming that prior precedent under the Due Process Clause and the First Amendment was violated. That legal precedent says journalist access to the White House is a liberty.
Benjamin Radd is a USC professor of the Gould School of Law. He said it is difficult to believe that there isn’t an agenda here.
“If it’s a situation where, let’s say the President were choosing which outlets based on ideology, outlook, preference or skew political coverage were being excluded,” said Radd. “If that’s clear, then I think that there’s a First Amendment question there, and I think that there should be access by all agencies. However, I understand if there’s issues of limitation, of space, logistical issues.”
A Trump-appointed judge, Judge Trevor McFadden, ruled against the AP’s emergency action lawsuit. However, the judge said he believed that further lawsuits may come to fruition for the news organizations based on these precedents.
Adrienne Lawrence, a USC professor of the Law of Mass Communications, said its hard to tell whether White House access for the AP will be restored.
“I know the AP has incredible lawyers, so I think there are going to be nothing but the best arguments made,” said Lawrence. “It’s so difficult when you teach law now, because oftentimes I find myself in a position of saying, ‘This is how it should work,’ as opposed to, ‘It’s going to be a crapshoot, we don’t know how it’s going to work in a Trump world.’”
Radd said when it comes to the AP lawsuit against the White House, right now it would be difficult to advance the ruling much further.
“I don’t think that it is necessarily entitled to access to the White House. It is deemed as a courtesy, a courtesy that has been extended without really much consideration for decades,” said Radd. “I think now that this raises the issue of whether or not this is an attempt to silence speech.”
The White House claims that this is a move to make journalism more accessible, rather than exclude legacy media.
“I would love to see more regional and small newspapers and radio stations and television stations included in the White House press. ....But that’s not what this is,” said Youngman. “This is purely punitive, and it’s replacing independent news organizations with news organizations that basically exist to lick Donald Trump’s boots.”
But there’s also concern about the further action that will be taken.
“It’s the small changes that are important to stand up to, because if we continue to acquiesce to these little things, then,” said Lawrence. “The larger things are also going to come into play, and by allowing the behavior to continue again, it is just mounting up for the larger things...”
Youngman spoke on his personal experience of being a part of the press corps.
“I would caution against that the stuff we think doesn’t affect us has a way of catching up with us in the long run,” said Youngman. “And this sort of assault on the First Amendment, this sort of assault on holding our powerful leaders to account. To me, it’s not just a slippery slope. It is a very, very dangerous game we’re playing”
With things unraveling quickly, it’s incredibly important to keep a lookout on all of potential next steps of the White House and the media’s coverage on it.