The Associated Press (AP) makes its money selling stories to other media outlets. It pays “stringers”—reporters and photographers—around the world to submit stories, which it makes available to its subscriber outlets who can’t afford to send reporters and photographers around the globe.
That’s a good thing for smaller media outlets like local new stations, but it’s also a very bad thing because then the AP makes mistakes, or goes woke, so do its subscribers who have no way of knowing they’re making those mistakes. They do know they’re going woke, but even if they’d rather not, their choice is to play along or drop the AP feed. A good example of the AP’s wokeness and anti-Americanism is this:
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Shira Bibas’ sons “died in captivity.” An honest and accurate account would say Bibas and her boys, 4 and 10 months, were savagely strangled by Hamas terrorists, and their bodies were clumsily mutilated so Hamas could claim they died in an Israeli airstrike, a perversely stupid and easily exposed lie.
The AP also uses its style guide to enforce wokeness and media outlets, including the majors, happily go along. It’s an enviable perch atop the media hierarchy and the AP has become used to certain perks, among them, a prominent chair in the White House Press Room. Until, that is, the AP decided to keep calling the Gulf of America the Gulf of Mexico, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, surely with the permission of President Trump, banished them, also from Air Force One and other places and events. This is also surely a part of Leavitt’s reshuffling the Press Room deck, booting established outlets replacing them with new media.to give new media a chance.
The horror.
Well, they can’t do that to the AP, because, uh, well, harumph, because they’re the AP, and journalism and First Amendment and Trump and stuff! So, the AP sued for those, ahem, reasons:
The suit was filed Friday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Washington. The AP is seeking an emergency hearing and a court order to declare the ban unconstitutional and require them to rescind it.
An “emergency” hearing! Cue the lawyers:
The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government. The Constitution does not allow the government to control speech. Allowing such government control and retaliation to stand is a threat to every American’s freedom.”
The Associated Press is filing this suit to protect other (legacy bullsh#t) news outlets from suffering the same fate of being banished from The White House. Whatever would we do without CNN, MSNBC and the likes of them?
Exactly! Why, this is an outrage! it’s unprecedented! It’s…what’s that? It’s not?
And, while we are on the topic of Mr. Biden, remember when he banned The New York Post from a briefing on airline policies with Pete Buttigieg because of one name: Miranda Devine.“no credentials were available?” But it wasn’t just The New York Post that had their crews revoked back in 2023. More than 440 reporters lost their press badges when Biden was at the helm in 2023. More from Potato Head Stelter and CNN:
“For decades The AP has been a foundational part of the so-called White House ‘press pool’ that travels with the president at all times and shares information with the wider press corps.”-Brian Stelter
See? See? The AP is “foundational!” And the press pool is “so-called!” And only the AP is qualified, because it’s foundational, foundational I tell you, to pass on White House news to everyone else! There are a few problems with the line of bovine patties:
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The First Amendment doesn’t guarantee media outlets can be wherever they want whenever they want. The AP isn’t in anyway restrained from reporting as it chooses. It just can’t dictate rules to the POTUS—any POTUS. Vice President Vance elucidated another, entirely constitutional, condition:
“If you’re a propagandist for the Democratic Party, then we’re going to treat you like a propogandist for the Democratic Party.”-Vice President, J.D. Vance
But the First Amendment?! Freedom of the Press?!
What’s your point? Telling any media outlet they’re out until they learn to behave doesn’t invoke the First Amendment. There’s no prior restraint. No one is demanding the AP surrender sources. No one is threatening to arrest AP flacks for what they write. The poor AP’s feelings are hurt. So sad.
As with other Executive Branch decisions, this is not reviewable by the courts. There’s no constitutional issue. That doesn’t mean the courts won’t get involved, but since this touches on the separation of powers and the First Amendment, the Supreme Court just might decide to deal with this on an emergency basis, and the AP might have to decide whether it’s more important to its subscribers to have complete access or to virtue signal.
It's not hard to guess their choice.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.