US media outlets plan legal challenge over White House access ban

CNN, MS NOW and Politico say they will sue the Trump administration after their journalists were barred from the White House, escalating a dispute over government control of media access.

The outlets said in a joint statement that their reporters’ credentials had been revoked without notice or process because the White House objected to their reporting. They said the legal action would defend the principle that the government should not determine what the press reports.

President Donald Trump announced the ban after accusing the organisations of publishing “fiction or lies” about his administration. As reported by the BBC, he did not identify specific stories, later describing the criticism as a cumulative record of reporting and suggesting other outlets could also be targeted.

ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC subsequently said they would suspend designated White House television pool coverage. The decision followed the White House preventing CNN from covering Trump’s trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Real America’s Voice was listed as a secondary crew instead.

The dispute is unfolding after the White House took control of the press pool in February, ending more than a century of management by the White House Correspondents’ Association. Associated Press journalists were also barred from restricted-access areas that month over the organisation’s use of “Gulf of Mexico”; its lawsuit remains ongoing.

The US First Amendment protects press freedom, and courts have traditionally interpreted it as limiting government discrimination against media outlets based on the content of their coverage. The supplied material says the three organisations plan to sue, but does not establish that proceedings have been filed or specify their legal claims.