Press Access Is a Privilege, Not a Right
As the press core throws a hissy fit over updated parameters around access to the Pentagon, I thought it might be valuable to revisit a brief series of thoughts I had in April regarding The Associated Press (AP) being booted from covering presidential events.
On April 8, 2025, the AP posted the following to Instagram plunging us into an interesting pseudo-grey area on the topic of free speech. Except, it isn’t. My opinion differs from the federal judge ruling on the case due to the specific wording of the First Amendment. We’ll get there.
If you didn’t follow the events at the time or were confused by the media spin, essentially, The Associated Press (AP) was kicked out of the White House press pool and briefing room because they refused to refer to the body of water off the western coast of Florida as The Gulf of America and continued to call it The Gulf of Mexico despite the “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” Executive Order. The Trump administration asserted that by misnaming the Gulf, the AP was knowingly printing false information in the eyes of the White House.
Note that this diverges from opinion or criticism since the choice by the AP to use an out of date name made their reporting contrary to fact. Printing false information is not covered under the protections of the First Amendment.
image credit: Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post via Getty Images
