Court filing identifies the democratic public as the injured party
Six citizens asked a federal court in New York on Monday to protect White House press access. The lawsuit names President Donald Trump, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung and Secret Service Director Sean M. Curran as defendants. It argues that limiting disfavored news organizations’ access violates not only those organizations’ rights but the public’s right to independent reporting about the president and government. The six plaintiffs say they rely on “independent and diverse White House reporting” for their teaching, journalism or advocacy.
The case differs from earlier legal action because its plaintiffs are ordinary citizens who watch and read the news and need it for their jobs, effectively representing the audiences for news media. The Knight First Amendment Institute and Yale Law School’s Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic filed the case for them. The complaint says, “The ultimate injury here … is to the democratic public.” Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute, said, “The First Amendment protects the public’s right to know what its government is doing.”
The complaint asks the court to declare the access policy unconstitutional because it imposes viewpoint-based and unreasonable restrictions in a limited public forum. It also seeks an injunction barring enforcement. Beyond restoring access already affected, the plaintiffs request a broad injunction that would protect every news outlet covering the White House from retaliation.
Kenneth Roth, a former longtime executive director of Human Rights Watch and a lecturer at Yale’s law school and school of global affairs, relies on newsgathering and reporting from members of the White House press corps to inform his public writing and commentary. Daniel Froomkin is a media and political journalist and the editor of Press Watch, a nonprofit that encourages political journalists to “fulfill their essential mission of creating an informed electorate and holding the powerful accountable.” Beverly Gage, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and professor at Yale University, relies on newsgathering and reporting from the White House press corps to inform her scholarship, public writing and commentary.
Peter Schmidt-Nowara, a social studies teacher at a New York City high school, teaches civics and considers White House reporting “essential to his work as an educator.” Benjamin Wittes is the editor-in-chief of Lawfare and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; his publication is “especially reliant on the White House press corps to provide accurate and timely coverage of the president.” Ethan Young, a student at the University of Pennsylvania and editor-in-chief of The Daily Pennsylvanian, relies on a “diverse, independent and trustworthy cohort” of White House reporters to serve as his proxy.
Schmidt-Nowara, who teaches at Brooklyn Technical High School, said, “As a social studies teacher, I want my students to have access to accurate, independent reporting about their government.” He is “gravely concerned that the Trump administration’s restrictions on White House reporters are cutting off access to crucial information.” He added, “I joined this lawsuit because my students deserve to know what’s happening in their government and to hear from a free and independent press.”
Because he cannot personally access White House press spaces, Young said the effect of federal policy changes has been “acutely felt on college campuses, Penn’s included.” He said, “As a student journalist, I rely on reporting from the White House press corps to understand the decisions made in Washington, their consequences, and how they impact my college community.” He added, “A vibrant free press allows me to do just that.”
Fallow said the White House cannot decide what information Americans receive by punishing critical reporting. “When the White House expels reporters because of their coverage and threatens others with expulsion, it isn’t just the press that suffers — the public loses access to independent reporting and gets something closer to government propaganda,” she said.
The new lawsuit follows separate litigation involving CNN, MS NOW and Politico, whose journalists were denied White House access in September. A federal judge recently extended an order preventing the White House from enforcing the access restrictions while that case moves through the legal system. CNN’s pool coverage remains affected: the White House has continued denying the network its usual video-pool slots covering Trump’s activities and travel, and CNN has threatened further action.
The Associated Press is also involved in continuing litigation. The Associated Press said its reporters were barred last year from the Oval Office, Air Force One and some events in retaliation for the outlet’s decision not to follow Trump’s lead in changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico, which lies partially in Mexican and other waters, to the Gulf of America. The New York Times is also involved in litigation over a Pentagon policy requiring escorts for journalists on its grounds. ABC is fighting back against the Trump administration in a dispute over the renewal of its broadcast licenses.
The complaint also argues that the restrictions reach beyond the targeted outlets. It says: “Defendants’ policy of restricting the access of disfavored news organizations deprives the public of the reporting of those organizations, and it inevitably deprives them of the independent reporting of other news organizations as well, since every journalist who reports from the White House must now account for the possibility that a critical or ill-advised word about the president may result in their access being summarily restricted or revoked.” The filing asks the court to treat the public’s access to independent government reporting as the injury at issue.