CNN, MS NOW, and Politico announced that they would be defending their First Amendment rights
News publications CNN, MS Now, and Politico announced their intent to sue the US administration for rescinding their press access to the White House, reported The Hollywood Reporter.
The publications declared that they would defend their First Amendment rights in a statement released on September 21. They noted that their credentials had been revoked “without notice or process,” per a snippet of the statement published by The Hollywood Reporter.
“This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes,” the publications said in the statement. “Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
CNN was supposed to be the primary TV press pool that day as US president Donald Trump met with New York mayor Zohran Mamdani and France’s president Emmanuel Macron while the UN General Assembly was going. However, Trump said in a post made on his Truth Social platform on Friday September 18 that CNN was banned along with MS Now and Politico; by Saturday September 19, journalists from the three publications found their access to the White House removed.
The removal of CNN resulted in the suspension of the White House TV pool per a memo issued the morning of Monday September 21. In addition to CNN, the pool had consisted of ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox News.
“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting,” the TV pool companies said in a joint statement published by The Hollywood Reporter.
This is not Trump’s first attempt to restrict press coverage; during his first US presidential tenure, his administration blocked CNN correspondent Jim Acosta from accessing the White House. A judge reinstated Acosta’s access on the grounds of First Amendment protections. The US administration also banned The Associated Press from certain events, prompting a suit.
Litigator Ted Boutrous, known for his work in First Amendment matters, leads the suit now filed by CNN, MS Now, and Politico.
“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the publications said in a snippet of the lawsuit published by The Hollywood Reporter. “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. No official can deprive Plaintiffs of those interests on a whim—with no notice, no process, and no warning—as the President did here.”
The publications cited the 1964 Supreme Court decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 acknowledging the First Amendment’s guarantee of a free press, which reflects “a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”
