The five major American television networks announced on Monday the suspension of joint television coverage of President Donald Trump’s activities. This decision came in response to the White House preventing CNN from performing its scheduled role in covering the president’s trip to New York to participate in the United Nations General Assembly meetings, stressing that it will not provide alternative coverage.
This escalation comes in the wake of the ban on CNN, MS Now, and Politico journalists from entering the White House. Under the system, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC take turns providing joint coverage of the president’s activities and making the footage available to the rest of the media. In this context, Brian Boughton, head of the Fox News bureau in Washington, confirmed in a memo to the coverage team that the suspension of the joint arrangements came as a result of CNN being excluded from its mission, with the banned institutions continuing to prepare their reports from outside the White House complex.
In a related development, CNN, MS Now, and Politico filed a joint lawsuit against the Trump administration, demanding the restoration of the right of its journalists to enter, considering that the ban decision violates the First Amendment to the Constitution and due process guarantees. The institutions explained in their lawsuit that the US Constitution does not allow the press to be deprived of its rights simply because a government official objects to the content of its news coverage.
President Trump announced this ban on Friday, accusing the three institutions of spreading “fake news,” and the next day, their journalists’ entry permits were suspended and they were prevented from reaching their workplaces inside the White House. While there was no immediate comment from the White House on the lawsuit, Trump defended his decision in a post on the “Truth Social” platform on Monday, stressing that his administration does not target a free press, but rather pursues what he described as “fake news” which he considered a threat to national security.
