The First Amendment forbids the government from “abridging” the freedom of the press – language that courts have traditionally interpreted as preventing the government from discriminating against the media based on the content of their coverage.
The statement from CNN, Politico and MS NOW said: “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.”
Posting on Truth Social shortly afterwards, Trump said the White House was not “instituting an assault on the Free Press” and that he was targeting “FAKE NEWS”.
On Monday morning, major US TV networks pulled out of White House pool duties, which involves media organisations sharing material with each other to save on costs and space when broadcasting presidential events to the American public.
Fox News Washington bureau chief Bryan Boughton, who currently holds a rotating role helping to organise media TV crews covering the White House, wrote in an email seen by the BBC that “effective today, the TV pool will not be covering designated as pool coverage” of President Trump.
The message said the move followed the White House “preventing” CNN from fulfilling its pool duties for Trump’s trip to New York and that “there will be no replacement pool put in place”.
CNN – one of only five US news outlets in the White House press pool for live television – was originally due to cover Trump’s trip to the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday and Tuesday.
But on Monday morning, the five-seat CNN booth in the basement of the White House press area – typically manned throughout the day from the early hours of the morning – was empty and closed. Screens and monitors inside were turned off.
Instead, a CNN crew was outside the secured area of the White House grounds, broadcasting live from a public pavement.
Five TV networks, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC, issued a joint statement: “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.”
Those five networks are considered the only ones with the money and infrastructure to distribute live coverage from the White House and presidential events.
For now, the White House media slot has remained vacant and instead the conservative TV outlet, Real America’s Voice, was listed as “secondary” crew on Trump’s trip to New York, where he will meet Mayor Zohran Mamdani and French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday.
