{"id":1764,"date":"2026-09-21T16:22:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T16:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/21\/many-presidents-have-had-a-bad-press-but-donald-trumps-decision-to-ban-selected-media-from-the-white-house-is-extreme\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T16:22:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T16:22:22","slug":"many-presidents-have-had-a-bad-press-but-donald-trumps-decision-to-ban-selected-media-from-the-white-house-is-extreme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/21\/many-presidents-have-had-a-bad-press-but-donald-trumps-decision-to-ban-selected-media-from-the-white-house-is-extreme\/","title":{"rendered":"Many presidents have had a bad press \u2013 but Donald Trump\u2019s decision to ban selected media from the White House is extreme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s fight with the media has escalated with the news that five major broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC, have suspended their pool coverage of the White House<\/a>. Their decision comes after the Trump administration banned CNN, along with MS Now and Politico, from the White House for alleged \u201cfake news\u201d and \u201cnegative news\u201d reporting.<\/p>\n

CNN was due to be the White House broadcast network responsible for covering the White House<\/a> for the week beginning September 21. In a joint statement the networks said: \u201cThe public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organisation because it objects to its reporting.\u201d <\/p>\n

CNN, MS Now and Politico have filed a lawsuit \u201cto protect our First Amendment<\/a> rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes\u201d. <\/p>\n

According to the US constitution, the First Amendment states: \u201cCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.\u201d<\/p>\n

The once mighty White House Correspondents Association said on September 19<\/a> that the \u201caction revoking access for journalists from CNN, Politico and MS Now violates the First Amendment [\u2026] The WHCA calls on the administration to immediately restore our colleagues\u2019 access.\u201d <\/p>\n

On the day after the ban was announced, CNN\u2019s Betsy Klein, MS NOW\u2019s Akayla Gardner and Politico\u2019s Cheyenne Haslett all reported on having their badges taken away from them after showing up to work at the White House. <\/p>\n

Klein\u2019s report on CNN argued reporting would continue and \u201cwe can do our job anywhere\u201d. But while this is a commendable aim, it is a wrongheaded argument to make when you are also maintaining that you ought to be doing that job from inside the White House because access is an inalienable right.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s media battles<\/h2>\n

Trump likes to characterise his relationship with the press as open and transparent. And yet he has been embroiled in multiple court cases which have seen some media outlets, such as CBS, hoist the white flag<\/a>, paying stupendous amounts of money for alleged unfair reporting or editing. The BBC is still facing a US$10 billion (\u00a37.4 bllion) lawsuit<\/a> over a so-called \u201cunfair edit\u201d in a Panorama programme dating back to 2021.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Associated Press (AP) is also involved<\/a> in its own ongoing court action against the Trump government over its banning from Oval Office and Air Force One pool reporting. The ban was imposed following AP\u2019s decision to continue using the internationally recognised geographical term the \u201cGulf of Mexico\u201d \u2013 which Trump demanded be changed to the \u201cGulf of America\u201d.<\/p>\n

Some media advocacy groups are condemning this latest blow to press freedom. Seth Stern from the Freedom of the Press Foundation said: \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to imagine a more blatant violation of the First Amendment than Trump banning news outlets from the People\u2019s House for criticizing the government. It\u2019s also hard to imagine a dumber move.\u201d Given that this White House, in particular the vice-president, J.D. Vance, is often heard parroting the cause of free speech, it is also deeply ironic.<\/p>\n

Bad press precedents<\/h2>\n

Many previous heads of government have clashed with the press in the past but stopped short of bans. Joe Biden restricted the number of press \u201chard passes\u201d to the White House in 2023 from 1,417 to 975, but as Politico reported<\/a> at the time, the administration argued this was \u201cabout ensuring those who hold them are actively working the beat\u201d. <\/p>\n

Barack Obama\u2019s Treasury Department was accused back in 2009 of intentionally trying to exclude a Fox News reporter from interviewing his administration\u2019s \u201cpay czar\u201d, Kenneth Feinberg. This was put down to a miscommunication and was rectified by the administration. On September 19, Obama told an audience at Colgate University<\/a> which was discussing the newly introduced Trump press ban: \u201cI\u2019m trying to think what would have happened if I had said, you know what, Fox News, you\u2019re outta here!\u201d <\/p>\n

\n<\/figure>\n

But perhaps the former president whom Trump most resembles is Richard Nixon. One must not forget Nixon\u2019s comments on the press<\/a>, captured on his own secret audio tapes made from the White House in 1972. In a meeting with his national security advisors Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig, he said: \u201cNever forget the press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy, the professors are the enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, the organisations that have oversight of press access and coverage are toothless. There was a time when the WHCA was in charge of organising the press pool rotations and access to briefings and Air Force One. But now it has to bow before Trump\u2019s decisions on granting access to media outlets that extol the virtues of his administration. <\/p>\n

According to Pew Research data<\/a> (2022) only one in six media workers in the US are in a union. The country\u2019s largest media union, the NewsGuild-CWA, with its 25,000 members, has still to comment.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Colleen Murrell has received funding in the past from Irish regulator Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n for the Reuters Digital News Report Ireland (2021-4). She is a pro bono chair of The Conversation’s UK editorial board and previously reported for AP.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s fight with the media has escalated with the news that five major broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC, have suspended their pool coverage of the White House. Their decision comes after the Trump administration banned CNN, along with MS Now and Politico, from the White House for alleged \u201cfake news\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}