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CNN Sues White House Over Denial of Acosta’s Press Pass

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Public Statements Give Way to Court Action

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Public Statements Give Way to Court Action

“CNN sued the Trump administration Tuesday, demanding that correspondent Jim Acosta’s credentials to cover the White House be returned because it violates the constitutional right of freedom of the press,” David Bauder reported Tuesday for  the Associated Press.

The suit put punctuation on a debate among journalists about how the network should respond to President Trump’s boldest attempt to limit reporters he does not like.

“The administration stripped Acosta of his pass to enter the White House following President Donald Trump’s contentious news conference last week, where Acosta refused to give up a microphone when the president said he didn’t want to hear anything more from him. . . .”

Kalhan Rosenblatt added for NBC News, “Listed as defendants in the suit are Trump in addition to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Deputy Chief of Staff Bill Shine, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, and the U.S. Secret Service and its director Randolph Alles and an unnamed Secret Service agent.

“On Tuesday, Sanders responded to the suit, saying that CNN has nearly 50 other pass holders and that ‘Acosta is no more or less special than any other media outlet or reporter with respect to the First Amendment.’

“’We have been advised that CNN has filed a complaint challenging the suspension of Jim Acosta’s hard pass. This is just more grandstanding from CNN, and we will vigorously defend against this lawsuit,’ Sanders said. . . .”

New York Times correspondent Peter Baker observed on Twitter, “White House shifts its explanation for barring @Acosta — no more mention of  ‘placing his hands’ on anyone, now the issue supposedly is that he kept asking questions. So if they think he monopolizes a press conference, why do they call on him?” Baker was not the only journalist to notice the inconsistency. The video that Sanders produced purporting to substantiate her claims appeared to be doctored.

That edited video was first shared by Paul Joseph Watson, known for his conspiracy-theory videos on the far-right website Infowars.

In public remarks on Friday morning, Trump suggested he could pull press credentials from other reporters who don’t show him “respect.”

Acosta, of Cuban-American background, has been one of Trump’s favorite targets. “Trump has been insulting journalists since the time he was a candidate
Let’s not forget he banned Jorge Ramos and Univision from his press conference at Mar a Lago. Sadly, Ramos did not receive any support from the media when he was evicted from Trump’s press conference,” Connecticut columnist Bessy Reyna wrote Saturday in a comment to Journal-isms.

In August of 2015, Univision anchor Ramos was ejected from an Iowa press conference after challenging Trump on his comments about Mexicans as rapists. Ramos was soon allowed back into the room due, at least in part, to the lobbying of Tom Llamas from ABC and Kasie Hunt from MSNBC.

More attention was paid last week when Trump insulted April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks, Abby Phillip of CNN and Yamiche Alchindor of the “PBS NewsHour,” all black women.

Those insults were not as severe as revoking press credentials, however. On that issue, suing the White House has been just one of several responses proposed by journalists and First Amendment defenders.

Other suggestions have been boycotting the White House briefings in solidarity with the disrespected reporters, though the number of briefings has been dwindling.

“If this White House has now arrogated to itself the power to veto new organizations’ choices of which reporters will cover them based on the President’s
likes and dislikes, it is time for the White House press corps to leave the press room,” Richard Tofel, president of ProPublica, tweeted on Friday.

“It is also time for them to stop live broadcasting and streaming of events from the White House. If the Administration wants to reach the press corps it
should come to a truly public forum, where it does not get to choose which journalists attend.”

In the New Yorker, Masha Gessen came out on the other side. “The White House is a lousy source of information about itself, but it is also the best available source. The real story of Trumpism is probably found not in the White House or even in Washington but in Ohio, in Texas, along the Mexican border, in refugee camps the world over, in Afghanistan, in Yemen, and in the Palestinian territories. But the story of how the Administration functions must still be observed up close.

“Walking away would give this White House exactly what it wants: less contact with the media, less visibility, ever less transparency and accountability. . . .”

Trump said he could pull others’ credentials.

Acosta and CNN might have legal precedent on their side. “A 1977 court ruling said that administrations cannot bar correspondents from the briefing room without ‘due process,’ ” The Atlantic wrote in a headline above an essay Friday by Scott Nover.

Robert Sherrill was Washington correspondent for the Nation. “While the court did not demand that the Secret Service issue him a press credential, it did set forth a series of new, transparent steps to ensure that no reporter’s First Amendment rights were violated,” Nover wrote of Sherrill’s case, decided by  Judge Carl E. McGowan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

“ ‘Once the government creates the kind of forum that it has created, like the White House briefing room, it can’t selectively include or exclude people on the basis of ideology or viewpoint,’ said Ben Wizner, the director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

“The new steps enunciated in the Sherrill decision to ensure that reporters’ First Amendment rights are not violated include the requirement to give the
reporter notice and the right to rebut a formal written decision, which must accompany any revocation. ‘We further conclude that notice, opportunity to
rebut, and a written decision are required because the denial of a pass potentially infringes upon First Amendment guarantees,” the court’s ruling states.

“Such impairment of this interest cannot be permitted to occur in the absence of adequate procedural due process.’

“ ‘If the Secret Service makes this kind of determination that they’re going to no longer let someone have access, or limit access from the start, there
should be a really good reason for that,’ Michele Kimball, a media-law professor at George Washington University, said. ‘And if you are denied that access, there should be some sort of procedural due process for you, [so] that you can find out what happened.’ . . .”

On CNN’s “Reliable Sources” media show Sunday, retired ABC News White House correspondent Sam Donaldson, known for shouting questions during the Ronald Reagan era, tipped off viewers that the CNN suit might be coming.

“Sam Donaldson surprised me by saying that he’s been asked to prepare an affidavit to support CNN. He said he thought there was a hearing scheduled for Tuesday,” Brian Stelter wrote Sunday in his “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Donaldson said on the show that he had emailed Acosta and told him to “keep it up.”

On the same program, First Amendment expert Floyd Abrams said that CNN “should sue” the White House for revoking Acosta’s press credentials.
“It would be a “really strong lawsuit,” Abrams said.

Trump Lobs Insults at Black Women

Nov. 10, 2018
Scorn Heaped on 3 White House Reporters

Media Critic Says CNN Should Sue Trump

How 10 Newsrooms Address Need for Diversity

Milestone Jury Reform Began With 5-Part Series

Algorithms Could Be the Newest Jim Crow

NAJA Condemns Tribe’s Repeal of Free Press Law

ADL: Votes for Extremists ‘Disturbingly High’

. . . Congress to Seat Record Number of Latinos

. . . More on the Midterms

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” ‘You talk about somebody that’s a loser,’ President Trump said of April Ryan, a White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks. (Credit: Screen shot)

Scorn Heaped on 3 White House Reporters

This time, President Trump’s insults to black female reporters were so egregious that even journalists whose priorities are usually elsewhere quickly picked up on them.

“During a rant on Friday about CNN reporter Jim Acosta, President Donald Trump turned to another reporter, April Ryan,” Rebecca Morin reported Friday for Politico.

” ‘You talk about somebody that’s a loser,’ Trump said of Ryan, a White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks who is African American. ‘She doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing.’

“During the gaggle in front of the White House, Trump continued to criticize reporters and went after another reporter of color.

“ ‘What a stupid question that is. What a stupid question,’ he told CNN reporter Abby Phillip after she asked if Trump wants [Acting Attorney General Matt] Whitaker to ‘rein in [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller.’

” ‘But I watch you a lot, you ask a lot of stupid questions,’ the president continued to Phillip before turning away and refusing to answer the question.

“Journalists, media groups and academics immediately started speaking up, saying the remarks revealed a bifurcated approach between how the president treats white reporters and those who are women or people of color, including PBS NewsHour White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, with whom he also [quarreled] this week.

“While the president insults many journalists, these critics say his barbs targeting women and people of color feel especially sharp, and hit at the reporter’s basic intelligence and competence as a person. It’s a tone that black reporters and scholars of African-American history say particularly stings, given that [African American] journalists were not allowed into the White House until 1947 — and that the White House press corps remains overwhelmingly white to this day.

“Things have gotten contentious between the president and the press, but this is unlike anything we’ve seen since the days that African Americans were first allowed into the White House to report,” said Marcia Chatelain, an African-American studies professor at Georgetown University. Alice Allison Dunnigan was the first African-American to serve as White House correspondent, which she gained access to in 1947.

” ‘Although we have a 70-year history of African-American reporters being brought into the White House, it seems that this president wants to extend beyond those years in the days that they were banned,’ she added.

“The National Association of Black Journalists on Friday said Trump’s comments towards Ryan, Philip and Alcindor were ‘appalling, irresponsible and should be denounced.‘

” ‘The most powerful man in the free world is verbally abusing journalists,’ NABJ President Sarah Glover said. ‘The past two years have been filled with assaults on the media and Donald Trump’s comments this week have reached an all-time low with attacks on three black female journalists.’

“Trump’s scolds also drew attention as they came the same week the president repeatedly interrupted reporters who had accents, saying that he did not understand them. To some media observers, Trump’s reactions echoed reports that Trump has previously mocked the accent of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi or mimicked the style of Asian trade negotiators.

“Chatelain said Trump’s behavior demonstrates his contempt toward people of color and women. . . .”

Time reports on the clash between CNN’s Jim Acosta and President Trump at Trump’s news conference on Wednesday. (Credit: Screen shot))

Media Critic Says CNN Should Sue Trump

“The White House cited CNN’s Jim Acosta ‘placing his hands on a young woman’ as the reason for pulling his credentials, referring to an intern who was trying to take a microphone away from him as he persisted in trying to ask a question of President Donald Trump,” Ted Johnson reported Friday for Variety.

“Now Trump suggests that reporters will risk their credentials if they do not treat the White House and the presidency with ‘respect.’ ” . . .

Washington Post media critic Margaret Sullivan suggested a solution Thursday that might stop Trump in his tracks.

“CNN should sue the Trump White House on First Amendment grounds. And press-rights groups, along with other media organizations, should join in to create a united and powerful front,” Sullivan wrote. “(Fox News, which benefited from the press corps’ united front on its behalf when the Obama White House tried to exclude it from some briefings in 2009, should pay that solidarity forward by getting on board.)

“ ‘This merits a forceful response, and a lawsuit would be reasonable,’ said Jonathan Peters, a media-law professor who teaches at the University of Georgia Law School and is the press freedom correspondent for Columbia Journalism Review.

“He told me by email that the stated rationale for revoking the pass ‘was clearly a sham,’ and the White House should be held accountable.

“ ‘Nothing educates the government so much as a damage award,’ he said. (The claim, he said, would probably take the form of an action under a statute that
authorizes suits against government actors for, among other things, a deprivation of First Amendment rights.)

“The legal question, he said, may be whether a journalist has a First Amendment right of access to information or places closed to the public but open generally to press — and some lower courts have said yes. (In Sherrill v. Knight, the D.C. Circuit Court ruled in 1977 that a reporter for the Nation shouldn’t have been denied a White House press pass.)

“Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told me Thursday that CNN ‘now has a legitimate claim that there’s been retaliation — a line has been crossed here.’ . . .”

How 10 Newsrooms Address Need for Diversity

The Columbia Journalism Review race issue.

“What does it mean that most newsrooms in America don’t reflect the diversity of the communities they cover?” the editors of Columbia Journalism Review asked in another piece posted online from its special print edition on race and journalism.

“The answer can’t be good. CJR visited 10 newsrooms across the country where the mismatch between the makeup of the staff and the demographics of the coverage area seems particularly notable.

“What we found is both depressingly predictable — lots of talk about job pipelines and a lack of qualified candidates  — and unusually candid. Editors admitted that they had, frankly, failed.

“The fact that the conversations about diversity are the same ones that the industry has been having for decades (really since the report of the Kerner Commission a half-century ago), shows how little progress has been made in the United States, even as the demographics of the country have changed profoundly. It is true that journalism’s failure is not unlike that of other institutions, from corporate America to college campuses to Congress, but that is as much an excuse as an observation.

“For the profiles that follow, we talked to newsroom managers, reporters, and residents about what a lack of diversity means to readers and to journalism itself. And, critically, we look at what now has to happen to fix the problem.

“Honolulu, Hawai‘i
“Seattle, Washington
“Los Angeles, California”
“Baltimore, Maryland
“Queens, New York
“Denver, Colorado
“South Bend, Indiana
“Houston, Texas
“Orlando, Florida
“Jackson, Mississippi . . .”

Nearly two-thirds of Louisiana voters chose to eliminate a provision that allowed non-unanimous jury convictions. Supporters on Tuesday pushed ending a Jim Crow-era practice that enabled split-jury convictions. (Credit: Chris Granger/the Advocate)

Milestone Jury Reform Began With 5-Part Series

“The law was born in the Jim Crow era,” David Beard wrote Thursday for the Poynter Institute. “Thanks to strong journalism and bipartisan support, Louisiana voters killed it Tuesday night, 120 years later.

“Nearly two-thirds of the state’s voters chose to eliminate a provision that allowed non-unanimous jury convictions.

“The move was one of several momentous ballot initiatives approved across the nation Tuesday, including a decision in Florida to allow the vote for up to 1.4 million Floridians who had done their time for a felony conviction.

“In Louisiana, The Advocate worked for nearly a year on a five-part project that showed how jury convictions — even if one or two jurors didn’t agree — distorted justice in the state. Journalists created a database in 10 state parishes and found that of 994 convictions, 40 percent came from these ‘split’ jury votes.

“Journalists Jeff Adelson, Gordon Russell and John Simerman found African American defendants were 30 percent more likely to be convicted by non-unanimous juries than white defendants. Blacks were underrepresented on juries and black jurors found themselves 2.5 times more likely to be on the losing side of a conviction vote, said Russell, the newspaper’s managing editor for investigations. . . . ”

Beard also wrote, “Russell told me that the remarkable move to restore unanimous-only verdicts began with black lawmakers and the ACLU and spread to the Catholic church, the Louisiana Family Forum and the Koch Brothers. ‘This went from mostly a liberal issue to being a bipartisan coalition,’ he said, including well-organized canvassing and campaigns with funding from the [Kochs] and foundations by Mark Zuckerberg and George Soros. . . .”

Algorithms Could Be the Newest Jim Crow

“Since 2010, when I published ‘The New Jim Crow’ — which argued that a system of legal discrimination and segregation had been born again in this country because of the war on drugs and mass incarceration — there have been significant changes to drug policy, sentencing and re-entry, including ‘ban the box’ initiatives aimed at eliminating barriers to employment for formerly incarcerated people,” Michelle Alexander wrote Thursday for the New York Times.

She became a columnist there in September.

“This progress is unquestionably good news, but there are warning signs blinking brightly. Many of the current reform efforts contain the seeds of the next generation of racial and social control, a system of ‘e-carceration’ that may prove more dangerous and more difficult to challenge than the one we hope to leave behind.

“Bail reform is a case in point. Thanks in part to new laws and policies — as well as actions like the mass bailout of inmates in New York City jails that’s underway — the unconscionable practice of cash bail is finally coming to an end. In August, California became the first state to decide to get rid of its cash bail system; last year, New Jersey virtually eliminated the use of money bonds.

“But what’s taking the place of cash bail may prove even worse in the long run. In California, a presumption of detention will effectively replace eligibility for immediate release when the new law takes effect in October 2019. And increasingly, computer algorithms are helping to determine who should be caged and who should be set ‘free.’ Freedom — even when it’s granted, it turns out — isn’t really free. . . .”

As data scientist Cathy O’Neil explains in the essay, “It’s tempting to believe that computers will be neutral and objective, but algorithms are nothing more than opinions embedded in mathematics. . . .”

Mvskoke Vision is a weekly TV broadcast covering issues concerning Indian Country. MV airs in the Tulsa, Okla., area on Saturdays, and episodes are available on the Mvskoke Vision YouTube page. (Credit: Mvskoke Vision)

NAJA Condemns Tribe’s Repeal of Free Press Law

The Native American Journalists Association said Friday it “condemns the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s repeal of the free press law and asks Muscogee (Creek) citizens to support an independent press free of government influence and censorship.

“On the evening of Nov. 8, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation National Council voted 7-6 to repeal the tribe’s Free Press Act and move its award-winning independent media arm, Mvskoke Media, under the executive branch’s Department of Commerce. The repeal also dissolved Mvskoke Media’s three-member editorial board and placed the staff under the direction of the Secretary of the Nation and Commerce Elijah W. McIntosh. The measure was approved by Principal Chief James Floyd.

“The text of the measure was not announced or made available to the public — including the Mvskoke Media staff and editorial board — until the morning of the meeting. As confirmed during Thursday night’s emergency council session, neither the Mvskoke Media staff nor the editorial board was consulted in the drafting process or even knew that the bill had been written.

“During debate on the measure, elected officials cited a desire to see ‘more positive stories’ in the newspaper. NAJA has also learned that Mvskoke Media staff must now receive prior approval on all published material. It is the opinion of NAJA that journalists should be bound by the ethical obligation to seek truth and report it. . . .”

Curtis Killman reported Friday for the Tulsa World, “Muscogee (Creek) Nation National Council Speaker Lucian Tiger III issued a statement Friday that read in part:

“NCA 18-180 returns Mvskoke Media to the Executive Branch and will continue to operate as it did before. Nothing in NCA 18-180 disbands or restricts Mvskoke Media’s ability to act as the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s media outlet despite attempts to brand the legislation as restrictive or suppressive of freedom of speech.”

(Credit: Anti-Defamation League)

ADL: Votes for Extremists ‘Disturbingly High’

“The 2018 midterms were not kind to most of the country’s extremist and bigoted candidates, but a number of them did garner disturbingly high vote counts,” the Anti-Defamation League said on Wednesday. “More than 1.8 million Americans voted for known extremists and bigots who were running for national offices. In races for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House, extremists pulled in, on average, 29% percent of the vote.

“It’s important to acknowledge that some of these votes – perhaps even the majority – may reflect voters’ ignorance and/or their decision to vote a straight party ticket. But it’s also impossible to ignore the fact that a certain number of people felt, in the case of each of these candidates, that it was reasonable to vote for an overt white supremacist, or an outspoken bigot.

“The extremists’ sole winner of the night was U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-IA), whose reelection prospects appeared briefly dimmed by his embrace of overtly white nationalist rhetoric. King beat back a strong Democratic challenger to keep his seat in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District. He won his 9th term with 50.4% of the vote.

“Despite their losses, the following extremist and bigoted candidates were successful in another, critical sense: For the past several months, they enjoyed a very public platform for disseminating their vile ideologies to millions of potential voters.

“Moreover, the political atmosphere that allowed these candidates to compete also allowed others who are not on this list to rely on racist, anti-Semitic and bigoted arguments against their opponents. . . .”

. . . Congress to Seat Record Number of Latinos

“More Latinos will serve in Congress next year than ever before — at least 42, with one House race to be decided,” Luis Alonso Lugo and Emily Swanson reported for the Associated Press.

“With Latinos reaching an unprecedented level of representation on Capitol Hill, The Associated Press was able to document that 34 percent of Hispanics voters approve of how Donald Trump is handling his job as president, and other factors that mobilized the vote among the nation’s largest ethnic or racial minority. . . .”

Separately, “Latinos and other minorities voted heavily for Democratic candidates, helping to drive the party’s capture of the U.S. House in this year’s midterm elections, experts said Wednesday,” Suzanne Gamboa reported for NBC News.

Gamboa quoted Latino Decisions pollster Matt Barreto, who said in a conference call, “The net wave of the Democratic pickup is due entirely to strong support from minority communities who voted Democrat. The call discussed the election eve poll of 9,425 Latino, African American, Asian Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Native American voters.

. . . More on the Midterms

Short Takes

“Looked in the mirror, I checked myself out. I was like, ‘Yeah, you are kind of sexy today.’ Idris Elba told People. “But to be honest, it was just a nice feeling. It was a nice surprise — an ego boost for sure.”

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