Press Pool Banned

The White House has banned reporters from CNN, MS Now, and Politico from accessing White House grounds or participating in White House press events. In response, the White House TV pool, which is composed of ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC is boycotting coverage of the White House and the president during the ban. The three banned outlets have filed a lawsuit seeking to be reinstated on First Amendment grounds. President Trump responded that it was not a restriction of a free press but rather a crackdown on fake news.

The clash is similar to a previous move by the White House to ban the Associated Press (AP) from White House grounds over a dispute about the contents of the AP’s coverage. The AP also sued in that instance, winning a partial judgement which is currently on hold as the litigation plays out.

Analysis and eternal perspective: Once again, your default view of this story is very likely significantly impacted by your underlying view of the president and the news outlets in question. If you think coverage of the White House by the outlets in question is biased, you are likely to believe the ban improves the accuracy of reporting. If you have a more skeptical view of the president, you likely see this ban as an effort to suppress a dissenting point of a view.

Harkening back to our first story, we as Jesus followers can have confidence in leaning on a single source of Truth. Our God is unchanging (Jam. 1:17; Mal. 3:6), and that gives us a firm footing from which to navigate these sharp divisions.

Next, one of the core protections afforded by the First Amendment is that of a free press (“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom . . . of the press”). By its nature, the First Amendment assures the presence of multiple viewpoints by prohibiting the government from restricting the press based on the content of its reporting. In order for this protection to mean anything, it must survive even if the reporting in question is of dubious quality. This is yet another reason for those of us on the receiving end of news coverage to interact with it in a considered and discerning way, because for transparency in reporting to prevail it is necessary for even questionable coverage to be protected.

Candidly, this is one of the main reasons we gather as The Equipped community. We take seriously the charge to “understand the times” (Rom. 13:11), but we do so mindful that our interaction with all things of this present world is for the purpose of serving the eternal One (2 Cor. 4:18).

Finally, all Jesus followers should land where we started: What a joy it is to serve an unchanging God!