White House bars 3 news outlets after Trump threat

What happened

The Trump administration on Saturday barred reporters from CNN, Politico and MS NOW from the White House, following through on President Donald Trump’s post a day earlier warning he was “banning” the three outlets as a “result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” The White House Correspondents’ Association and other media organizations condemned the decision, and the networks announced Monday they had filed a joint lawsuit against the Trump administration over the ban.

Who said what

Trump’s public and private “frustrations” with the media coverage of his presidency “reached a fever pitch” when “one of his closest aides, Natalie Harp, showed him clips of anchors on the cable network MS NOW criticizing his administration,” The Wall Street Journal said. His decision to ban the three news organizations hours later “caught many White House officials by surprise,” and “one senior administration official reacted with exasperation,” arguing that the move “would do little to achieve the president’s goal of improving press coverage.”

What next?

Trump is clearly “not interested in playing by traditional First Amendment rules and norms,” Penn State University media law expert Amy Kristin Sanders told The Associated Press. It’s “not an exaggeration to say his hostile actions toward news organizations and individual reporters have a chilling effect on freedom of expression around the world.”

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