A federal judge in Washington rejected the White House’s effort to keep The Associated Press from routinely covering President Trump, siding with the wire service and finding that it had faced political retaliation over its editorial decisions.
The order dealt a blow to Mr. Trump, who, in a departure from decades of tradition, has moved to leverage access to White House events as a way of asserting more direct control over coverage of his administration. The dispute has raised profound questions about the independent news media’s role in shaping public opinion and the lasting implications of the president’s effort to determine how he is portrayed.
Judge Trevor N. McFadden of the Federal District Court for the District of Washington wrote in his opinion that the Trump administration must “immediately rescind their viewpoint-based denial” of The Associated Press from the White House press corps.
“The government repeatedly characterizes the AP’s request as a demand for ‘extra special access.’ But that is not what the AP is asking for, and it is not what the court orders,” he wrote. “All the AP wants, and all it gets, is a level playing field.”
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit The Associated Press filed in February, which asked that its longstanding access to smaller press events at the White House be reinstated.
Since that time, the administration has barred the publication from participating in the press pool, a rotating group of reporters that cover the president’s day-to-day activities, and blocked it from covering the president in intimate settings such as the Oval Office and Air Force One. It cited the wire service’s refusal to adopt the administration’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
At issue is whether the White House’s moves amount to a suppression of the outlet’s free speech rights and are an act of prejudice.
As one of the world’s premier wire services, The Associated Press distributes articles, photographs and video to over 3,000 U.S. news outlets, as well as 900 international sites.
The White House has since said that it did not intend to discriminate against The Associated Press specifically, but to narrow the group of journalists who attend smaller events in the West Wing and travel with Mr. Trump on Air Force One. Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, has said the moves are meant to expand access by bringing in smaller digital publications alongside the legacy media outlets that have long dominated the press corps.
But The Associated Press, in its complaint, asserted that it had been singled out over its decision not to recognize the new name.
Lawyers for the wire service have contended that the White House effectively seized control of the pool rotation previously organized by the White House Correspondents’ Association. As a result, the lawyers said, officials had started discriminating against outlets based on their viewpoint, sidelining mainstream news sources in favor of more conservative voices who would cover Mr. Trump more sympathetically.