Editor's note: Following this article is the full text of an opinion statement by Julie Pace, the AP’s executive editor, that appeared in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON — The Associated Press is returning to a federal courtroom on Thursday to ask a judge to restore its full access to presidential events, after the White House retaliated against the news outlet last month for not following President Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
In a hearing last month, U.S. District Court Judge Trevor N. McFadden refused the AP’s request for an injunction to stop the White House from barring reporters and photographers from events in the Oval Office and Air Force One. He urged the Trump administration to reconsider its ban before Thursday’s hearing. It hasn't.
“It seems pretty clearly viewpoint discrimination,” McFadden told the government's attorney at the time.
The AP has sued Trump’s team for punishing a news organization for using speech that it doesn’t like. The news outlet said it would still refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its style guidance to clients around the world, while also noting that Trump has ordered it renamed the Gulf of America.
“For anyone who thinks the Associated Press’s lawsuit against President Trump’s White House is about the name of a body of water, think bigger,” Julie Pace, the AP’s executive editor, wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. “It’s really about whether the government can control what you say.”
The White House said it has the right to decide who gets to question the president, and has taken steps to take over a duty that has been handled by journalists for decades.
The president has dismissed the AP as a group of “radical left lunatics” and said that “we’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America.”
The AP has still covered the president, and has been permitted in White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s press briefings, but the ban has cost the organization time in reporting and impeded its efforts to get still and video images. Even if McFadden rules in favor of the news organization, it’s unclear how the White House will respond to the judge’s order.
The White House Correspondents' Association has asked its members to show solidarity with the AP on Thursday, perhaps by showing up at the courtroom or wearing a pin that signifies the importance of the First Amendment.
The case is one of several aggressive moves the second Trump administration has taken against the press since his return to office, including FCC investigations against ABC, CBS and NBC News, dismantling the government-run Voice of America and threatening funding for public broadcasters PBS and NPR.
A Trump executive order to change the name of the United States’ largest mountain back to Mount McKinley from Denali is being recognized by the AP. Trump has the authority to do so because the mountain is completely within the country he oversees, AP has said.
Writing in the Journal, Pace said the AP didn’t ask for the fight and made efforts to resolve the issue before going to court, but needed to stand on principle.
“If we don’t step up to defend Americans’ right to speak freely," she wrote, "who will?”
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The following is the full text of an editorial written by AP Executive Editor Julie Pace, which was published Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal.
The AP’s Freedom of Speech—and Yours
A brazen attempt to punish us for using words Trump dislikes.
For anyone who thinks the Associated Press’s lawsuit against President Trump’s White House is about the name of a body of water, think bigger. It’s really about whether the government can control what you say.
The ability to comment on politics and consume news created without interference and intimidation by the government is central to American democracy. So central, in fact, that it is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
This principle is now under threat. On Thursday Judge Trevor N. McFadden of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia hears arguments on whether the government can bar AP reporters from covering presidential events. The White House has locked us out simply because we refer to the Gulf of Mexico by the name it has carried for more than 400 years, while acknowledging that Mr. Trump has chosen to call it the Gulf of America.
The White House claims this is simply a matter of changing which news organizations have access to the president. But it’s nothing less than a brazen attempt to punish the AP for using words the president doesn’t like. It’s also meant to show other media outlets what will happen if they don’t fall in line.
No president of either party has been shy about letting us know when he didn’t like our coverage. They have the right to criticize us. But no president—including Mr. Trump during his first term—has ever tried to blacklist us because he didn’t like what we wrote.
The White House is shutting out an independent global news agency that provides coverage for thousands of media outlets in more than 100 countries, from local newspapers to major television networks and technology platforms—and everything in between. Four billion people see our stories each day. As the Joplin (Mo.) Globe put it, “Denying the AP coverage is effectively denying access to our readers, too. This is a petty and indefensible attack on the press. It needs to stop.”
Our customers choose the AP because they trust us to get the facts right, to be nonpartisan, and to cover the news independently without any outside influence—especially from the government. The AP has reported extensively, fairly and accurately on both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Imagine this dispute outside the U.S. context. If you discovered that the AP caved to a different government trying to control its speech, would you ever again trust anything the AP reported from that country—or for that matter, from anywhere?
We didn’t ask for this fight. We pursued every possible avenue to resolve the issue before taking legal action. But we must stand on principle. No matter how this case ends, the AP remains steadfast in its mission to inform the world with accurate, factual and nonpartisan news—as it has for nearly 180 years.
The AP has no corporate owner and no shareholders. If we don’t step up to defend Americans’ right to speak freely, who will? Today the U.S. government wants to control the AP’s speech. Tomorrow it could be someone else’s.