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A US judge on Tuesday ordered the White House to restore full access to the Associated Press to presidential events, after the news agency was punished for its decision to continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage. The order from the US district judge Trevor McFadden, an appointee of Donald Trump, requires the White House to allow the AP’s journalists to access the Oval Office, Air Force One and events held at the White House. The White House “sharply curtailed” the AP’s access to media events with the US president after he renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and the news agency did not follow suit, McFadden wrote in a 41-page decision. “Under the First Amendment, if the government opens its doors to some journalists – be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere – it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints,” McFadden wrote. “The Constitution requires no less.” The AP sued three senior Trump aides in February, alleging the restrictions violated the US constitution’s first amendment protections against government abridgment of speech by trying to dictate the language they used in reporting the news. Lawyers for the Trump administration have argued that the AP does not have a right to what the White House has called “special access” to the president.
In a big win for press freedom, Trump appointee Trevor McFadden rules in Associated Press v. Budowich against Donald Trump’s anti-press freedom move to bar the AP from presidential event spaces over refusal to use “Gulf of America”
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Source: theguardian.com
