So far, the reaction of the White House press corps (and their editors) to the banning of Acosta has been entirely rhetorical. That seems to me a potentially historic error.
The impetus for talking loudly but carrying no stick has been that actually doing something might help Trump politically. But it is emphatically not the job of the press to play politics.
What is the plan for when Trump concocts an excuse for vetoing a reporter from the NYT or WaPo? Surely we must realize that if it works with CNN, this will just be the first time, and not the last.
At every good news organization of which I’ve been aware over 35 years in and around journalism, it has been a bedrock principle that subjects don’t get to choose the reporters who cover them, which includes not getting to veto reporters they don’t like.
I started my career working as a very young intern in the White House press office. I did my undergraduate thesis on the office’s history. The White House can be and has been effectively covered from off-campus. @maggieNYT does it superbly on many days.
If this White House has now arrogated to itself the power to veto new organizations’ choices of which reporters will cover them based on the President’s likes and dislikes, it is time for the White House press corps to leave the press room.
It is also time for them to stop live broadcasting and streaming of events from the White House. If the Administration wants to reach the press corps it should come to a truly public forum, where it does not get to choose which journalists attend.
If the press (or much of it) could hang together on this, I think they would prevail. But even if they do not, the principle will be preserved, against a time when, eventually, this country is again governed by people who share the nation’s historic commitment to press freedom.
