Two court filings have been largely overlooked in the flurry of lawsuits, injunctions and appeals that have spawned from the Trump Administration’s aggressive agenda of remaking American government and policy.
On the surface the suits, filed by the Associated Press against the administration, are about restoring access to White House news briefings and presidential appearances. The AP has been barred for what seems to be a farcical reason: It won’t refer to the Gulf of Mexico as “The Gulf of America,” a presidential order Donald Trump signed his first day in office. But this is no laughing matter – there are much deeper principles at stake. The first, which the AP cites in its lawsuit and follow-up filings, is the constitutionally ensured freedom of the press in the United States. That definition of freedom includes independence – the right and ability to report and depict events free from government dictates or coercion. The second important principle is the ability of the media to have access to news events and newsmakers, to ask questions independently and record events with photos and video, all to inform and represent the greater interests of the America public. The Associated Press – a global nonprofit news cooperative in operation since 1846 – is one of the leading suppliers of reliable, dispassionately reported news to news agencies big and small across America. (Advance Local, MLive’s parent company, is a member of the AP.) Blocking the AP blocks transparency into government, period. Tension between presidents and the press is nothing new. Herbert Hoover made reporters submit questions in writing, saying “The President of the United States will not be questioned like a chicken thief by men whose names he doesn’t even know.” Richard Nixon famously said at his last press conference, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.” Presidents of every administration have had their favorite reporters and others they shunned. But none, until Trump, have denied all access to an entire news organization. His administration’s ban of the AP has extended to airport tarmacs, meetings with leaders of other nations and events. The AP has its reasons for not accepting “Gulf of America” as its preferred style: The body of water is not entirely controlled by the US, and it is known internationally as the Gulf of Mexico. By contrast, the AP has accepted Trump’s order renaming Denali as Mount McKinley, stating “the area lies solely in the United States and, as president, Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names within the country.” All of that seems logical. However, this is not about logic – it’s about control and fealty. Trump seeks to bend all he interacts with to his whims and objectives. He rode into office in his first term coining the term “fake news” and calling mainstream media “the enemy of the people.” These weren’t labels, they were tactics to undermine the centuries-old relationship Americans have with the news sources that work for them. Trump didn’t follow conventions that acknowledged the necessary government-press dynamic, such as attending the White House Correspondents Dinner (the only president not to have attended since Calvin Coolidge started the tradition in 1924). Trump opened his second term by suing CBS News and The Des Moines Register. You don’t need a full psychological workup on the president to know he does not like to be challenged or questioned – just ask Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But that’s the job of the media: We report what authorities say, but we also ask questions to get clarity, to point out inconsistencies, to just plain get it right. I can anticipate the emails I will get saying the media is left leaning and we are getting what is coming to us for being, essentially, a pain in the president’s side. While it’s not our objective, it’s our constitutional right and duty to hold leadership accountable. The support of the right for the AP to be in its historic role as one of three permanent wire services in the White House press pool cuts across ideologies – even Trump-friendly media outlets like Fox News and Newsmax have signed letters urging the administration to lift the ban. That’s for one reason: Coverage from traditional news organizations may drift toward one slant or another, but you can know that it is independent, free from government manipulation. Anything else is propaganda. MLive stands with the Associated Press. And together we stand for the right of the American people to cover and question their government leaders through independent and unfettered media. # # # | 