News organizations CNN, MS NOW and Politico are suing the Trump administration over the banning of their reporters from the White House on Friday. Their credentials were confiscated or deactivated when they attempted to enter White House grounds over the weekend. Trump’s decision is “sending the message that if you write stories that are critical of the president, you’re going to lose your access,” says Katie Fallow, a deputy litigation director at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, where she focuses on threats to freedom of speech and of the press. “The real victims of this war on the press are members of the public, which are entitled to know about what their government is doing.”
Fallow says the White House press briefing room is a “public forum” and that “the courts have said repeatedly the government is not allowed to kick people out of that forum based on their viewpoint.”
