A Critical Case Of Entitlement

     The attitude that one is owed by a particular institution, that one’s status trumps the prerogatives of the institution and the claims of others, can be as damaging to a long-established news outlet as to any other kind of organization. Such a lawsuit can produce either a healthful clarification of the law or legal demolition through judicial overreach.

     Today, the Associated Press is in the spotlight for that reason:

     In a lawsuit filed against White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, the AP argued that the ban from the Trump administration “violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution” and that it violated “the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
     “The White House has ordered The Associated Press to use certain words in its coverage or else face an indefinite denial of access,” the complaint from the news outlet said. “The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government. The Constitution does not allow the government to control speech. Allowing such government control and retaliation to stand is a threat to every American’s freedom.”

     Wildly, even comically overblown, yes. However, it illuminates one of the distinctions I like to emphasize these days, when such claimants seek to befuddle others: the difference between a privilege and a right.

     For many years, the AP’s designees have had the privilege of automatic admission to, and front-row seating at, White House press events and announcements. Their lawsuit strains to represent that as a right:

     As the D.C. Circuit has made clear, journalists’ “first amendment interest” in access to the White House “undoubtedly qualifies as liberty which may not be denied without due process of law under the fifth amendment.” Sherrill v. Knight, 569 F.2d 124, 130-131 (D.C. Cir. 1977). Defendants gave the AP no prior or written notice of, and no formal opportunity to challenge, their arbitrary determination that the AP would indefinitely lose access to the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other limited areas as a member of the press pool – as well as access to large locations open to a wider group of journalists and reporters with White House press credentials – unless the AP adopted the Administration’s preferred language in its reporting.

     The suit also alleges that denying access to the White House constitutes a denial of rights under the First Amendment, which is even sillier. The judges on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia who ruled thus must have taken “English as a Second Language” – and failed it. But such is the state of the judicial environment in this Year of Our Lord 2025.

     The test for the AP’s claims is simple: Does every person or organization that represents itself as a news organ possess these ‘rights’ equally? Since the answer, even by the AP’s tortured logic, must be No, the AP’s claims are absurd. They amount to We’re the Associated Press; therefore you must let us in.

     The Trump Administration is bent on shaking up the political Establishment. It knew it would face resistance from the Establishment’s entrenched members and bastions. I hope President Trump and his advisors are willing to fight the journalistic Establishment with equal fervor. It’s arguably harmed the nation as much as those who’ve had a gorilla’s grip on the levers of federal power. Making room for new, less appreciated outlets in the White House press pool might succeed in changing the orientation and tone of national reportage. Leaving things as they were on the grounds that “we’ve always done it this way” would yield no improvement in the media’s coverage of developments within the Executive Branch.

     This is a suit that deserves to reach the Supreme Court. America needs a clarification of the nature of the rights protected by the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Far more than the “rights” claimed by journalists requires it. The confusion and obfuscation have lasted for too long.