Media coalition urges federal appeals court to restore AP’s access to White House press pool

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the White House Correspondents’ Association, joined by 46 news and media organizations, are urging a federal appeals court to restore The Associated Press’s access to the White House press pool, arguing that the government’s expulsion of the news service in retaliation for its editorial decision violated the First Amendment.

In a friend-of-the-court brief the Reporters Committee filed on Monday, the media coalition highlights the threat posed by the White House’s decision earlier this year to exclude the AP from covering certain White House events after the news service chose not to follow President Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico. The brief asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to affirm a lower-court ruling in favor of the AP, emphasizing the White House press pool’s historic function as an “independent chronicler of the presidency” that is essential to the free flow of information to the public about the nation’s highest office. 

The White House presumably hopes that “under threat of retaliatory ejection, questioning will be friendlier — that outlets will face pressure to pull their punches, to gloss over mistakes or unartful remarks, to avoid pressing for answers,” the brief argues. “And were it to succeed, the core function of the pool — to offer a complete, candid record of the presidency — would atrophy.”

The brief is the latest showing of broad support for the AP among news and media organizations. In February, the Reporters Committee led a media coalition of more than 30 news organizations in sending a letter to the White House, which noted that “[a]ll news organizations covering the White House are negatively affected when one peer outlet is singled out in a manner that crosses a constitutional line.” 

The Reporters Committee then filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the AP after the news service sued the White House in federal district court. In April, U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden sided with the news service and ordered the White House to re-admit AP journalists into the pool. 

“[U]nder the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists — be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere — it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints,” Judge McFadden wrote in his 41-page order. “The Constitution requires no less.” 

That order has been stayed by the D.C. Circuit while the Trump administration’s full appeal is taken up by the appeals court. 

As the litigation has played out in court, the White House has started handpicking members of the press pool, breaking with decades of precedent where members of the pool that track the president’s daily activities are chosen by the White House Correspondents’ Association. 

“The White House press pool exists to serve the public, not the presidency,” Reporters Committee President Bruce D. Brown said in a statement after the White House announced the new system.