When I came to the United States from India in 1982, I did not trust newspapers. Back home, everyone knew which party a paper favored before reading a line. American television felt different. My family watched Peter Jennings every evening, and later I found Larry King on CNN, who let his guests talk instead of telling viewers what to think. That habit of holding everyone to one standard has mostly faded.
On Sept. 18, President Trump announced he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, saying their reporting was fake news. The next morning the Secret Service took reporters’ badges at the gate. The outlets sued on Monday, and Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS declined to take CNN’s turn in the television pool. On Sept. 24, Judge Timothy Kelly, whom Trump appointed, blocked the ban for 14 days. He found the outlets likely to win on due process, because reporters got no notice and no chance to respond, and he doubted the government’s national security explanation. Trump’s answer was to call the judge “totally disloyal.”
Some of the first objections came from Trump’s own side. Jonathan Turley, a law professor and Fox News contributor, called the ban an assault on a free press. Jacqui Heinrich, the Fox anchor who now leads the White House Correspondents’ Association, said constitutional protections do not depend on whether a president likes the coverage.
The administration does have an argument, and it deserves a fair hearing. Attorney General Todd Blanche says White House access is a privilege, not a right, and that a president may decide who flies on his plane. But a privilege cannot be pulled to punish what a reporter wrote, and so far the government has not shown the court a security reason. On Saturday CNN was left off Air Force One, and on Monday the outlets asked Kelly for a longer injunction. His current order runs out Oct. 8.
Neither party owns this habit. In May 2023 the Biden White House turned away a New York Post reporter from a presidential event, three months after Biden told the paper to bring “more polite people.” That was one event, not a standing ban, and I do not call the two equal. Still, almost nobody outside conservative media treated it as a press freedom issue.
Money stories get the same uneven attention. Trump’s annual disclosure, released June 30, showed more than $1 billion in crypto income for 2025; the White House says he has no conflicts. Congress has its own problem. A former Georgia congresswoman bought stocks just before Trump’s tariff pause last year and said her portfolio manager made the trades. A Democratic senator’s blind trust holds shares in companies his committees oversee, and his office says he does not direct it. In July the House passed a stock trading bill 232 to 198, but it carries a voter ID rider, so it stalls in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes. The fine under current law for filing late is $200.
Gallup reported Tuesday that trust in the media rose to 33 percent from last year’s record low of 28. The gain came almost entirely from Republicans, up to 22 percent from 8. Democrats are at 50. Gallup’s poll ended Sept. 17, the day before the ban, so the next reading is the real test.
Three fixes would help. The White House should publish one written credential rule, with notice, a stated reason and an appeal, which is the process Kelly found missing. The correspondents’ association, not the press office, should run the pool, as it did for decades. And Congress should vote on the stock bill without the voter ID rider. Newsrooms, meanwhile, can ask one plain question before running or skipping a story: would we treat this the same way if the other party held the office?
I trusted Peter Jennings because he seemed to use one yardstick. Trust comes back the same way. This month a judge and several Fox commentators used one yardstick, and some called them disloyal for it. That is the standard I would like everyone else to meet.
Meda Parameswara Reddy, Ph.D., is the Director of the Reddy Center for Critical and Integrated Thinking.
