The Reporter Stays in the Room

I watched the President of the United States call a reporter a stupid person for asking a question. My first thought was, why doesn't anyone snap back? "I'm not a stupid person. I asked you a clear, sensible question, and you can't answer it."

Some have. In May 2020, Weijia Jiang of CBS was told to "ask China," and she asked right back, "Sir, why are you saying that to me, specifically?" He couldn't answer, and he ended the press conference. In 2018, Jim Acosta of CNN wouldn't hand over the microphone, and the White House took away his press pass.

That's the part that got me. They can just do that?

Not legally, it turns out. A federal appeals court decided back in 1977, in Sherrill v. Knight, that the White House can't deny a reporter a press pass arbitrarily. They have to give notice and a chance to respond. CNN sued, a judge ordered the pass restored, and Acosta was back in about a week and a half.

So the reporter won. But look at what actually happened. The White House threw him out first. He had to sue to get back in. For that whole stretch he was out of the room, and every other reporter in that room watched it happen. What did the White House lose? Nothing. The punishment already landed. The lesson already got taught. Losing in court later costs them nothing.

That's the loophole. A right you can only get back by suing is a right the powerful can suspend whenever they like, for as long as the case takes.

The order is backwards. The reporter should stay in the room while the case goes on. The court should decide whether the reporter has to leave, not the person the reporter is asking questions of. The default should protect the free press, not the official who is annoyed by it. And the people with guns at the door should be there to protect the reporter's right to be in that room, not to remove them from it.

Right now the people who enforce access to the White House answer to the President. So even when a reporter wins, it only works if the White House chooses to comply. That's not freedom of the press. That's freedom of the press when the President allows it.

I think this is one of the main things wrong with the country right now, and it needs to be reversed. The question stays. The reporter stays. The burden belongs on the people trying to throw them out.