MS NOW, CNN and Politico said they filed suit against the federal government following a decision by President Donald Trump to ban the three news organizations from newsgathering at the White House, the latest fracture in the relationship between the president and the national media. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.” The three news companies filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
MS NOW, CNN and Politico sought an order that would keep officials from taking any more action to ban its staffers from reporting at the White House and calling for an immediate restoration of the credentials required to access the grounds. The Constitution “protects the liberty and property interests that news organizations and White House reporters have in their press credentials and the access those credentials afford them to cover the White House for the benefit of the public,” the companies alleged in a legal filing. In 2018, the first Trump administration banned Jim Acosta, then a top White House correspondent for CNN, from White House newsgathering following an incident in which the reporter tried to hold on to a microphone as a government staffer tried to pull it away from him.
A federal judge ordered Acosta’s credentials to be restored on a temporary basis as CNN pursued legal remedies. The White House subsequently dropped the matter, and CNN ended its legal efforts.
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