Freedom of the press is a right promised to American citizens. But President Donald Trump is taking a stand against it.
His latest attempt to block the press is by assuming control over which news outlets get to be part of the White House press corps. This group of reporters has the opportunity to follow Trump up close and cover his daily actions from a firsthand perspective.
Trump’s seizure of the press corps is unprecedented and sends an alarming message against free speech.
Traditionally, the press corps has journalists from many different platforms who share the president’s words and activities with a variety of news outlets, which disseminates this information to the public,
But on Feb. 25, the Trump administration declared it will be selecting which reporters and outlets are allowed to be part of the White House press corps.
This statement followed Trump’s decision to ban the Associated Press (AP) from the Oval Office and Air Force One because of its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
Since then, the AP has accused the Trump administration of violating the First Amendment right to free speech and has sued three Trump officials. But the judge presiding over the case declined to make a decision, instead asking for a full briefing. The judge argued that there might not be much harm to the AP as it can get information from the press corps.
But with Trump’s new policy of personally choosing who is in this press corps, the reliability of it comes into question. Reporters given access to the press pool may fear being overly critical of the Trump administration because they risk being barred from the corps in the future.
Generating such fear in news outlets is not unheard of by Trump. Disney executives will be paying $16 million to quietly settle a lawsuit against Trump, in an attempt to appease him. The Washington Post backed off its endorsement of Kamala Harris for president last fall, and announced a shift toward right-leaning editorials, earning praise from the White House.
Similarly, to earn a spot in the press corps, journalists will likely have to shift their ideologies to align with Trump’s.
The press corps will be limited to those the Trump administration deems worthwhile and truthful. This limits different perspectives, and in turn, pushes only one way of thinking to be presented by American media.