In late February 2017, President Trump barred certain news outlets from attending a briefing. CNN and the New York Times, among others, were denied access. Other news outlets that are considered to be “sympathetic to the administration” such as Fox, Breitbart and CBS were granted access to the briefing. Other sources such as the Associated Press and Washington Times were granted access but chose to not attend in protest of other outlets being denied access. President Trump has often attacked the news media for being “fake” and “dishonest.” While it’s not unusual for the president to be picky about who attends private meetings, what’s unusual, unprecedented and wrong about what President Trump has done is denying access to a publicly announced briefing.
One of the bigger concerns with this is a start to denying freedom of the press. According to the First Amendment, freedom of the press states that there is a right to circulate opinions and news freely without censorship. What Trump is doing is censoring who can write and circulate the opinions. It isn’t a full violation of freedom of the press, however, it could easily transform into such. Freedom of the press allows for citizens to read a variety of opinions and perspectives of events. This is important because it gives readers and viewers the opportunity to be well informed about world, national, state and regional issues. In order to make an informed decision, it’s crucial to understand every part of a story. One news media site may only offer one perspective of an event while another source offers a differing second perspective.
As a part of our knowledge seeking, we need to take all aspects into consideration before moving forward. There are news sources that are being created with the intent of providing fake news with malicious intent. Being cautious of where information comes from should be practiced more than ever. With that in mind, it’s not fair to completely eliminate the option for news media sources to not even have an opportunity of circulating information. As mentioned above, what Trump did is not fully a violation of freedom of the press, but it is a step in that direction.
National Press Club President Jeffrey Ballou said it was “deeply disturbing and completely unacceptable that the White House is actively running a campaign against a constitutionally enshrined free and independent press…The action harks back to the darkest chapters of U.S. history and reeks of undemocratic, un-American and unconstitutional censorship.” Executive Editor of Washington Post Martin Baron said it was “appalling” that other journalists were blocked from reporting the briefing. While it is technically legal to do this, it isn’t in support of the democratic pursuit for knowledge. It isn’t right to ban journalists from spreading information.
In the end, it hurts the American people since we lose out on having those numerous perspectives to learn from. These actions put forward by Trump are concerning for many news outlets. It does threaten our right to put out content, especially if it is not favorable for Trump’s administration and his ideals. We need news outlets to have access to things like publicly announced briefings. We need to have media to inform us of things that we otherwise have no access to ourselves.
