WASHINGTON—The Associated Press today filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s decision to exclude its reporters from White House and Air Force One press briefings. The White House banned the AP from these briefings because of the AP’s editorial decision to continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by its historical and international name, instead of the presidentially decreed “Gulf of America.”

The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, executive director, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

“President Trump’s decision to exclude the AP from important press briefings on the basis of its editorial decisions is an outrageous attack on press freedom and on the American public’s right to undistorted information about the government. If the First Amendment means anything, it means that the president doesn’t get to dictate how news organizations describe the world. AP’s lawsuit is both important and necessary.” 

The following can be attributed to Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

“The public relies on reporters attending these press briefings to cover the White House’s perspective, ask hard questions, and hold the administration to account. The First Amendment forbids the White House from selectively revoking access on the basis of a press outlet’s editorial decisions. The court should immediately restore AP’s White House press access.”

In a somewhat similar case involving the suppression of disfavored speech, the Knight Institute successfully challenged President Trump’s blocking of his critics from his Twitter account during his first term, establishing that public officials using their social media accounts as public forums run afoul of the First Amendment when they block followers because of their viewpoints. Read more about Knight v. Trump here.

 For more information, contact: Adriana Lamirande, [email protected].