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On Monday, the three news organizations that had been kicked out of the White House because of Donald Trump’s latest fit of pique sued the president and three top advisers.
An accompanying statement by CNN, MS Now and Politico accurately calls last week’s sudden lockout “a direct assault on the first amendment”.
The legal action is the right move, of course, and one that may prevail since the ban seems to be a clear case of what press-rights lawyers call “viewpoint discrimination”. In other words, Trump didn’t like their stories so he removed their access.
The president has been in a bad mood lately, for obvious reasons. Retaliating against the press is his favorite way to let off steam.
But something else, beyond legal action, is necessary, too.
“Time for the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal to report on the White House from off campus,” wrote Richard J Tofel, an attorney and the longtime president of the investigative news organization ProPublica, who writes a press-related newsletter, Second Rough Draft.
In other words, the biggest and most influential “print” news organizations – along with the major broadcast TV networks – should take collective action by boycotting that briefing room and similar White House events until their journalistic colleagues get their credentials back.
The major TV networks took a commendable step in that direction on Monday by deciding to suspend “pool coverage” of presidential events, since CNN was assigned to the duty of recording events and sharing them with the broader “pool” of news organizations.
“There will be no replacement pool put in place,” stated Bryan Boughton, the Fox News Washington bureau chief and chair of the TV pool in a memo to the White House press corps.
It’s especially good to see because the White House press corps often talks a good game about solidarity and press rights, but they’ve mostly kept doing what they’ve always done – treating Trump like any other president.
He can ban the Associated Press from the briefing room for refusing to use the term “Gulf of America” instead of “Gulf of Mexico”. He can respond to a reporter’s question with the disrespectful command “Quiet, piggy.” He can (through his defense secretary) try to revoke journalistic access to the Pentagon and fire top staffers at Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper. His weaponized justice department can subpoena New York Times reporters or show up at a Washington Post reporter’s home and seize her devices.
He can even trash as the “worst” his loyal rightwing media outlet, Fox News, for its recent polling that showed Americans’ deep dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy. He’s an equal opportunity media-basher.
But, no matter, Trump still gets that annual invitation to the White House Correspondents’ Association’s fancy DC dinner, where he can insult the press and make personal attacks on reporters whom he finds displeasing or those he simply wants to single out for abuse.
He still gets treated with deference.
And the reporters who are not in particular disfavor continue to go to White House briefings and press gaggles.
In other words, he mostly gets away with it.
This most recent ban is one of the most serious actions yet, as the scholar of authoritarianism, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, declared, calling it “a moment of reckoning for America”.
It’s not only, she said, “part of the autocratic playbook, but the timing is no coincidence. Trump is well into the autocratic backfire process, thus entire media outlets he sees as threats must be banished.”
To put it bluntly, Trump is a bully. And bullies will keep bullying until they get a punch in the nose.
As much as he professes to hate the mainstream media, Trump depends on it. He wants the constant attention. He loves being in the spotlight, where his every utterance – no matter how unhinged or false – is blasted out to the public.
It will get through to him if that kind of attention is withdrawn, as it was on Monday with the pool suspension.
Back when the AP was banned last year, a former Washington bureau chief at the news service, Ron Fournier, had some broader advice for the press corps.
“No self-respecting journalist should attend a White House briefing while the White House bans the AP for not accepting state-mandated language,” he wrote on social media, using the hashtag #BoycottTheBriefing.
Yes, media organizations may issue strongly worded statements, and may join in lawsuits, but solidarity is too often a theoretical thing, not a practical action with real-life consequences.
They offer a rationale, of course. It’s of utmost importance, journalists and their bosses will tell you, to cover the president. Not doing so would be a dereliction of duty and would stoop to the president’s level. It would be, God forbid, unprofessional.
But here’s the thing: reporters do not need to do their journalistic duty from inside the White House, or in an impromptu gaggle with Trump.
“We don’t need our journalistic watchdogs to have ‘access’ to Trump,” as former CBS News justice correspondent Scott MacFarlane put it. (He is now the chief Washington correspondent at MeidasTouch, the progressive media company.) “Everyone in the press room should walk out in protest … and source up.”
In other words, don’t abandon the job. Report aggressively from “off campus”.
It is a matter of principle at this point.
And principle should trump access. Especially at a time when American democracy is teetering on the brink.
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Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
