A Troubling Turn

A letter from Gary Miles ∣ Editor and Publisher | Detroit News

The Trump Administration's battle against the press took a troubling turn this week, even after a judge ruled that it was unconstitutional for the administration to bar The Associated Press from White House events. And it's a turn that will likely impact the coverage you read in The News every day.

The judge's ruling was clear: "Under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists ... it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints," wrote U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee. "The Constitution requires no less."

The White House curtailed AP's access only because it did not conform to the president's wishes on how to refer to the Gulf of Mexico, which he renamed the Gulf of America − a clear case of viewpoint discrimination and a violation of the First Amendment.

But instead of fully restoring AP's access, the White House this week took a rather draconian step: It removed designated spots in the press pool for all of the major wire services (AP, Reuters and Bloomberg). Instead of being there every day, the wire services will rotate into two pool spots reserved for print media reporters from about thirty publications across the country.

That's not conducive to strong coverage. One reason that all major newspapers, television stations and radio stations utilize wire services is for their speed, accuracy and their knowledge of the subject matter. Using the AP pool reports allows us, at The News, to put our two Washington reporters to work on stories of particular interest to our readers.

"The changes to the press pool today show that the White House is  just using a new means to do the same thing: retaliate against news organizations for coverage the White House doesn’t like," said Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents Association, which for the past century (and up until February) assigned pool duties for White House coverage.

As members of the press, we see efforts to control the message from all sorts of politicians in all parties, but rarely as egregious as this. We have not silently endured attacks on press freedom from any politician or party and we won't stand silently by this time.

I've been in touch with the AP and we'll keep working to restore the access that gets the coverage you want and need.

Regards,
Gary Miles ∣ Editor and Publisher
Detroit News ∣ gmiles@detroitnews.com