CNN, Politico and MS NOW have said they will sue the Trump administration after the three US media outlets were barred from the White House. President Donald Trump announced the ban on Friday, accusing the organisations of writing “fiction or lies” about his team. The companies said their reporters were denied access to the building on Saturday.
In a joint statement on Monday, they said they were pursuing legal action to “protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports”.
Posting on Truth Social shortly afterwards, Trump said the White House was not “instituting an assault on the Free Press” and he was targeting “FAKE NEWS”.
The First Amendment forbids the government from “abridging” the freedom of the press – language that courts have traditionally interpreted as preventing the government from discriminating against the media based on the content of their coverage.
A statement from CNN, Politico and MS NOW continued: “Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting.
“Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
BBC News has asked the White House for comment.
Announcing the ban last week, Trump did not mention specific stories or reporting that prompted the move, but later said “it’s really just cumulative stories over the last few years”.
The US president added that there “may be others to join them”.
When later asked by a reporter what he meant by this, Trump responded: “Others to come in terms of fake news? Well, you know, the New York Times is fake news, the Washington Post is fake news.”
CNN – one of only five US news outlets in the White House press pool for live television – was originally due to cover Trump’s trip to the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday and Tuesday.
But the pool slot has remained vacant and instead the staunchly conservative TV outlet, Real America’s Voice, was listed as “secondary” crew on the trip.
The pool acts as a representative for the media, sharing material with other outlets to save on finance and space when covering presidential events.
In February, the White House announced it was taking control of the press pool which has access to Trump and had for more than a century been managed by the White House Correspondents’ Association.
The same month, the administration moved to bar Associated Press (AP) reporters and photographers from spaces where access is limited, such as the Oval Office or Air Force One, because of the outlet’s usage of the term “Gulf of Mexico” instead of “Gulf of America”. AP filed a lawsuit and the case remains ongoing.
Trump has been frequently critical of news organisations and his administration has launched legal action against a series of outlets, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the BBC.
Some of the lawsuits have resulted in media organisations agreeing to pay multimillion dollar settlements. Trump’s lawsuit against the BBC is ongoing.
By BBC News
Email your news TIPS to Editor@Kahawatungu.com — this is our only official communication channel
