The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. This means the press or media has the right to publish and share ideas, opinions, and news without government censorship. Well, it seems as if this is no longer true.
The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that the White House would pick the pool of reporters allowed to cover the Trump presidency. This ends a long-time precedent of freedom of the press and highly regulates which journalists can witness the President’s activities first-hand.
This gives an unfair advantage to the news organizations picked by Donald Trump. Which reporters will get a pass, and who will be forced to get the facts second-hand?
Before this decision, the Trump administration had already banned the Associated Press from the Oval Office for refusing to recognize “Gulf of America” as the new title for the precious “Gulf of Mexico.”
The White House’s decision to personally choose which reporters are allowed to cover President Trump may prevent news outlets from independently holding the government accountable for its actions.
There is a reason the press is called the “fourth estate: “It is essential to a functional democracy that puts its citizens first. Denying a free press aligns President Trump more closely with the dictatorial tendencies often attributed by Trump to figures like Ukrainian President Zelensky. Also, while the rest of the world tends to agree that the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, is a dictator, President Trump refuses to refer to him as such.
Despite the high distrust in modern media, we still need professional journalists. There would be a lot more disinformation if the news were reported by random individuals on social media sites instead of professionally trained journalists.
However, in order to have a strong, reliable press, we need to give the press freedom to act independently. It is genuinely frightening how much power President Trump is using to change the fundamental rights of the American people, and it seems like it is only going to get worse.
