By Allen Nitschelm
Several days ago, in one of President Trump’s frequent interactions with the White House press, he announced that he planned to bar CNN, MS Now, and Politico from the White House. As one can imagine, the members of the White House media were upset
and peppered Trump with questions, most of which conveyed their belief that this was a violation of the First Amendment. To that charge specifically, Trump said he believed it would depend on who the judge was who heard the case, but he would be taking these actions despite the potential political fallout or regardless of whether they get reversed in court.
As an aside, none of these or other Leftist journalists seemed to complain (or file lawsuits) when the Biden administration effectively cancelled press conferences and allowed no interactions between the President and the media. Since they were overwhelmingly supportive of the Biden agenda (as awful as it was), they were fine sitting around twiddling their thumbs for four years. Now that Trump gives dozens of journalists across all platforms multiple times per week to ask him questions directly, they are upset about their First Amendment rights being violated. How odd.
I am a very strong supporter of the First Amendment. I majored in English in college, was a community newspaper publisher for over 30 years, started a political website in Acton, MA, and also started a media criticism site focused on bias in the Boston Globe
about seven years ago. And I support Trump’s position on this topic.
The First Amendment applies equally to all citizens, regardless of their chosen profession. One has the right to free speech in public forums, and that cannot be infringed by the government. Media are not licensed or controlled by the government.
Newspapers and other media outlets are self-appointed guardians of public information. Any access they are given to places other than public ones are by agreement and not by right. (Otherwise, anyone could claim to be a journalist and demand such access,
which would obviously be absurd.)
But the White House isn’t a public forum, even though it is public property. It is the seat of the executive branch. Any “rights” given to journalists are by agreement between the parties. So, for example, accredited journalists get special White House passes that allow them access. These can be cancelled or taken back (and have been in these three instances.)
This doesn’t at all stop CNN and its allies from reporting from in front of the White House, from beside the White House, or from behind the White House. They can report on President Trump anywhere else in the world. They just are prohibited from special
access that had previously been given.
What changed? Well, obviously, the occupant of the White House changed, but don’t forget—the media in at least two of these instances (I can’t speak about Politico, I don’t read that website) has also changed.
CNN and MS Now could be the poster children of the mainstream media and their Liberal bias. In Trump’s recent announcement of lower drug prices, he took questions on this topic. You can watch the Youtube video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Q8NbTXWxY (the questions start about halfway through).
Trump repeatedly and very cogently explained why the outlets were being banned (again, I’ll skip the Politico example because that is slightly different than the other two). He said they were examples of “Fake News” and he repeatedly complained that all of
the coverage of his candidacy and presidency has been overwhelmingly negative.
On this point, he is exactly right. Anyone who watched or reads mainstream media (and I do both, for perspective) knows that every story is slanted, every accomplishment is downgraded, and every mistake is magnified. It is grossly unfair.
When I worked on my Boston Globe criticism website (called Public Editor Press), and trying to be objective as I could be, I graded the average Globe “political” or “news” story (not opinion pieces) as getting a “C” for fairness. Occasionally I would read an article that was played completely straight, but that was very rare. And this was not focused on the Presidential election or candidates; it looked at all types of articles.
I asked our friend the AI what percentage of Trump campaign coverage was negative, and it reported back 56% – 77% negative. But after Trump got elected, that estimate jumped to 92% negative on the network’s big three stations on the evening news.
My point is not that the media must cover political candidates evenly (half positive, half negative) but that they are skewed against Trump. And as such, it is clear to me that these so-called journalists, news anchors, and news outlets are actually opinion journalists, opinion anchors, and opinion outlets.
In other words, because of the systematic degradation of our mainstream media where they routinely inject their personal (almost always negative) take on Trump’s presidency and administration, they can objectively no longer be called “news” outlets but should be called “opinion” outlets.
Coming from a newspaper background, there was always a clear line between opinion journalists and news journalists. That line has been erased during the era of electronic media. But if you look back at the traditional White House press corps, nobody was an
opinion journalist. They were not given credentials to cover the White House. Only news journalists were. And in newspapers, there was a bright red line between opinion and news journalists. Opinion journalists were given their own pages near the Editorials that papers would run on various topics. Their bylines usually included words like “opinion” or “columnist.”
Because electronic journalism does not have such bright lines, there has to be another way to identify opinion versus news journalists. And since there isn’t, that determination is also a matter of opinion. The outlets claim these journalists are news journalists, but their work product shows them to be opinion journalists. And as opinion journalists, they do not get or deserve a seat in the White House briefing. Period. So what Trump is effectively doing is barring opinion journalists from the White House.
Now, to be consistent, Trump should also bar conservative opinion journalists from having access to Trump in the Oval Office or to daily briefings by White House spokespeople. Opinion journalists do not need to ask questions and have a give-and-take with top administration officials. They simply don’t need it to do their jobs. Their jobs are to comment on the news, not to cover the news. Therefore, White House press pass holders should only be held by actual news journalists.
One day, I hope journalism goes through a catharsis and reclaims the principles that once governed their profession. When that finally happens, if it ever does, the White House can allow any unbiased news journalists back into their briefings and the American people will be better off. But listening to biased so-called journalists ask questions to Trump and others and then have them result in overwhelming negative stories about the administration is not something that serves anyone, let alone their own readers and viewers. And it does not serve American democracy either.
All of these rules and arrangements were made during a time when newspapers had and enforced certain standards of conduct. Journalists were prohibited from injecting their personal opinions or biases in their articles. And editors’ jobs were to ensure that
such didn’t make it to publication if it did happen. Now, it seems most of these newsrooms exist for a different purpose and with different professional ethics. The change has completely eviscerated objective news reporting.
One side note: Trump name-called the Washington Post and the New York Times as also being terribly biased and alluded to possible action against them. While newspapers have a unique history and role to fill in our democracy (being able to investigate and dive deeply into topics that are rarely done by electronic media) and it would be very sad to see these publications banned from the White House, I honestly would not be surprised. A large part of my Boston Globe reporting included reading and reviewing stories in these outlets (mostly the NY Times) as many “news” stories get syndicated. This includes AP, one of the biggest violators of unbiased reporting that I saw.
And this is important: major newspapers used to have internal watchdogs to guard against biased opinions tainting news stories. These watchdogs were called “ombudsmen” or “public editors.” As far as I know, these important positions have been eliminated from all the mainstream outlets. So the public (or victims of biased reporting) have no recourse, other than the very people who are violating the principles of their profession. It would be like asking a judge to reconsider every opinion they just rendered.
So any recourse the public (or even President Trump) would have to address the unfair coverage has been dismantled. It is one of the main reasons I started my website called Public Editor Press, to try to provide that type of service to the public.
I’m sure the outlets would say eliminating these positions was due to budget cuts, and finances have definitely been under severe strain for many years because of the competition that has grown exponentially due to the development of the Internet. But I think that is a convenient excuse because these publishers actually know what they are doing and are fine with it.
But without these internal watchdogs, and with publishers and editors evidently okay with rampant and unchecked bias in their news departments, there is no other way to try to correct them. Trump’s only recourse is to deny this privileged access because of their obvious political bias.
Allen Nitschelm is the founder of Acton Forum and the former Publisher of Public Editor Press. He is now retired and living in New Hampshire.
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