U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before departing on the South Lawn of the White House, Feb. 28, in Washington.Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press
Jason Shepard is dean of the College of Communications at California State University, Fullerton.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest efforts to undermine press freedom began with what seemed absurd: a demand that journalists change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in their news reports.
But now, a pitched legal battle between Mr. Trump and the Associated Press threatens to further erode American journalistic independence, at a time when the country needs its most.
In banning the AP from the White House press pool weeks into his second term over the nomenclature spat, Mr. Trump set his sights on the paragon of fact-based journalism. The venerable non-profit news agency founded in 1846 currently serves 150,000 media outlets in more than 100 countries, and its AP Stylebook sets the standard for journalistic writing conventions.
In Washington, the White House press pool comprises a subset of credentialed journalists who act as the eyes and ears for the public. The AP has been a cornerstone of the pool from its founding more than a century ago. Historians note that the first White House pool reporter was an AP reporter who sent dispatches after president James Garfield was shot and died in 1881.
That the government can command what words journalists use is a serious threat to press freedom enshrined in the First Amendment. And if Mr. Trump succeeds in banning the AP, there may be no limit on government control of journalists covering the White House – or any government official for that matter.
“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish the AP for its independent journalism,” AP’s executive editor Julie Pace said in a statement. “Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”
The AP filed a lawsuit in a U.S. district court challenging the ban, arguing it violates free press and due process rights of the First and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The stakes are high.
The case is before Judge Trevor McFadden, who was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2017. The judge declined to issue a temporary restraining order against Mr. Trump’s actions, and a hearing for a preliminary injunction is scheduled for March 20.
The AP cited a 1977 precedent from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Sherrill v. Knight, in which a correspondent from The Nation magazine challenged the denial of his White House press pass application. The appellate court’s nuanced ruling said journalists have a First Amendment interest in accessing press galleries, although it is not an absolute right. The court ruled the government is required to follow clear standards for issuing and denying press credentials, and deviating from those norms requires a “compelling government interest.”
In two cases during Mr. Trump’s first term, the government dropped its attempts to revoke the press passes of CNN’s Jim Acosta and Playboy’s Brian Karem, after two federal judges sided with the journalists based on the Sherrill precedent.
The AP argues in court documents that Mr. Trump’s actions constitute illegal viewpoint discrimination and retaliation. The AP also highlights Mr. Trump’s follow-up actions, including ending the practice of allowing the White House Correspondents’ Association to organize the press pool, as further evidence of “doubling down” on attempts to retaliate against news organizations that Mr. Trump dislikes for challenging his allegations of election fraud in 2020.
Journalism groups are coming to the AP’s defence, arguing that the ban is an arbitrary, unjustified and invidious form of discrimination that is poison to the free flow of information.
“To tolerate it is in this case would undermine the central meaning of the First Amendment and the central purpose of the White House pool – to ensure that the public ‘never comes to depending on a president’s aides alone’ to understand the nation’s highest office,” the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press wrote in a legal brief.
The AP ban is just one of several continuing, alarming efforts to restrict press access. The Trump administration kicked out journalists from NBC, The New York Times, National Public Radio and Politico, among others, from designated work spaces in the Pentagon. Leading conservative media outlets are taking their place.
The Trump administration also cancelled government subscriptions to news publications, calling them wasteful. The administration is also launching investigations into several media companies, including into Comcast’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and a San Francisco radio station’s reporting on the locations of federal immigration raids.
This fits the pattern of Mr. Trump’s pugilistic relationship with the press dating back years. He has been transparent about his goal. “You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all so that when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you,” Mr. Trump told CBS’s Lesley Stahl in 2016.
During his first term, he lambasted the press as the “enemy of the people,” sought prior restraints against books critical of him, and attempted to weaken libel protections to make it easier to sue the press.
After his 2020 election defeat, he filed several lawsuits over stories about foreign-election interference and Trump campaign links to Russia. While courts rejected these lawsuits based on First Amendment precedents, some experts worried they created a chilling effect by driving up legal costs.
And indeed, in recent months several media companies caved in face of looming threats from Mr. Trump. ABC News agreed to pay US$15-million to settle a libel lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump, and Facebook’s parent company Meta paid US$25-million to settle a dubious Trump lawsuit.
Experts are watching two other high-profile lawsuits. CBS News is facing a lawsuit over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Mr. Trump’s 2024 opponent, Kamala Harris. Mr. Trump is also suing the Des Moines Register and its long-time campaign pollster over the reporting of election poll results days before the November, 2024, election that showed him losing in Iowa. While the lawsuit seems frivolous, Mr. Trump looks poised to litigate to maximum effect.
Mr. Trump has begun his second term emboldened and without guard rails that were in place during his first term. The tabloid newspaper and reality television star who shrewdly used media coverage to build political support to become U.S. president, not once but twice, seems more emboldened than ever to go after adversaries and institutions that don’t bend to his will. In Mr. Trump’s bullseye is independent journalism and a free press.
Mr. Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico may have seemed like a joke at the time. But the subsequent consequences for the Associated Press – and American press freedom writ large – is no laughing matter.