A UW journalism professor says there’s a lot of uncertainty in the White House press corps, where the major networks are standing with CNN, declining to replace its White House pool crew after the Trump administration barred the network. Michael Wagner is the Director of the UW School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
“More than anything, there’s just a great deal of uncertainty about how the most powerful individual in the world is being covered, and that’s being driven by his own desire to limit those who cover him if they cover him in ways he doesn’t like,” Wagner said.
Trump said on Friday he was “banning” CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. The White House press pool provides coverage for local broadcast stations as well as print media and online news outlets. Wagner says it’s not certain whether Fox News, ABC, NBC and CBS will change course and resume providing pool coverage, but the government cannot punish media outlets for coverage.
“Punishing outlets because the president doesn’t like what gets reported about the president is unprecedented and also I think pretty clearly violates the 1st and 5th amendments, at least according to how federal courts have ruled in the past on different kinds of questions related to press freedom.”