President Donald Trump’s White House press ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico was temporarily lifted this morning, following an order from U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly to restore the major news organizations’ access.
Trump said he imposed the ban, announced last Friday, because the outlets had allegedly reported “fake news,” and the “country has to have honest news.” After reporters were denied access to the White House, other news organizations boycotted the ban, the BBC reported.
Kelly’s temporary restraining order on the ban, set to expire in two weeks, aims to preserve the status quo until both sides can file their arguments by Oct. 5, according to the Associated Press. Following those filings, the court said it may issue a longer-lasting order lifting the ban.
Thomas A. Hollihan, professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, said it was unlikely that the ban would stay, noting that courts have “already signaled that they’re not going to let this ban stand.”
“The Trump administration was kind of slow-walking complying with the court order, but finally complied with it,” Hollian said.
Ginger Berry, a graduate student studying law, shared this sentiment and said she was never too worried about the ban to begin with.
“It’s a clear violation of the First Amendment, and I think it’s bad, but it also feels really unserious to me,” she said. “I mean, the court’s already blocked his ban, so I wasn’t really worried about it because I knew that it was an easy loss for [Trump] in the courts.”
According to Hollihan, the largest impact seemed to be more of a cultural one, suggesting where Trump is trending. He said Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the White House was a “dark irony” for the country.
Trump denied CNN access to cover the state dinner that Xi is to attend despite the ban being lifted earlier Thursday.
“We had the president meeting with the Chinese president, who’s head of an authoritarian nation and who’s the most prominent communist leader in the world, and the American president is praising the Chinese press because they’re friendly and compliant,” Hollihan said.
Abigail Sudit, a masters student studying public policy and law, described the ban as “despicable” and said that “the people have the right to have their news reported and shared with them.”
“I hate to be like, ‘It’s not shocking,’ but it’s not shocking he would do something like this,” Sudit said. “I do think it’s a little bit scary in terms of our president trying to limit media and media consumption by the public. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to continue that further.”
Edited by Miranda Huang