In 2008, Michael Bloomberg had gotten what he wanted: a change to city law that allowed him to run for a third term as New York City mayor (Reuters, 10/24/08). The next year, he won the election—outspending his rival 14 to 1. Detractors saw this move by the city’s richest resident as the sign of an entitlement complex, or even a drift toward urban autocracy.
In the midst of this, Bloomberg—who relished his daily question-and-answer sessions with the press—was overheard calling Azi Paybarah, then a reporter for the New York Observer, a “disgrace” for questioning the wisdom of his pursuit of a third term. Bloomberg was pilloried in the press for this transgression (WABC, 5/28/09; Politico, 5/28/09; New York Times, 5/28/09), and he eventually apologized (Gothamist, 5/29/09). Such an insult, deployed with imperious spirit in the midst of what looked like a power grab, was the talk of the local press corps for weeks.
It’s quaint to think there was a time when this would be considered a scandal. In his second term, Trump barred the AP from pressers because the agency would not call the Gulf of Mexico by its new Trumpian name (FAIR.org, 2/18/25), while Congress abolished the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (FAIR.org, 10/1/25). Trump has launched a flurry of defamation lawsuits against news outlets since his reelection (FAIR.org, 12/16/24). And the Department of Defense—sorry, we mean the “Department of War”—enacted rules harshly curtailing the press corps’ access to the Pentagon (FAIR.org, 10/24/25), and fired top staff of Stars and Stripes (CNN, 8/28/26), the in-house but historically editorially vibrant military outlet (FAIR.org, 9/18/26).
‘Trafficking in verifiable falsehoods’
The New York Times (9/23/26) reported that media outlets hit Trump where it hurts: “The so-called TV pool…suspended its immersive coverage of Mr. Trump, and some news outlets temporarily withheld publication of photos of Mr. Trump’s events.”
Now, in his latest outrage against press freedom, President Donald Trump has banned MS NOW, CNN and Politico from the White House (NPR, 9/19/26). After the outlets sued, a (Trump-appointed) judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring Trump to lift the ban (CNBC, 9/24/26), saying that the outlets had shown they were likely to prevail in their lawsuit. After some delay, the administration complied, but the war between Trump and the free press continues.
Politico, which has dominated Beltway reporting for some time, is owned by the German media giant Axel Springer (FAIR.org, 11/5/21), whose commitment to center-right values like free-market capitalism and European integration clash with the autarkic protectionism of the far-right MAGA movement (Le Monde, 4/1/25). Meanwhile, CNN and MS NOW exist in right-wing mythology as evidence that American broadcast media caters only to coastal liberals, while the poor underserved conservative audience has to subsist on Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, Sinclair, AM radio and Bari Weiss’s takeover of CBS News.
Trump’s rationale, if you can call it that, was laid out in a court filing in response to the banned outlets’ lawsuit, where his lawyers claimed these three outlets were “trafficking in verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues, and publishing sensitive or classified information.” From the New York Times (9/23/26):
The government filing Tuesday night included copies of letters sent earlier in the day to each banned news outlet. In addition to accusing the organizations of failing to meet standards of conduct, the letters identified specific stories that allegedly either spread falsehoods or threatened national security. The letter to CNN, for example, cited a January 2026 story that “disclosed ‘top-secret’ construction details related to the East Wing bunker,” the letter reads.
One of MS NOW’s alleged infractions, according to a White House letter, was a June 2026 story claiming “a source said that President Trump ‘underestimated the willingness of Iran to resume conflict.’” Politico is accused of publishing a “document detailing funding for the White House ballroom containing intricate descriptions of how the Secret Service would invest in security improvements.”
The circular reasoning here is that outlets lose their free press “privileges” (as opposed to a constitutional right) when they say things that aren’t true, leaving the president to be the sole arbiter of what is true and false. Now we’re in Enver Hoxha–land.
‘Take a break from getting lied to’
Donald Trump (Truth Social, 9/21/26) draws a distinction between the “Free Press”—i.e., outlets that support him—and “FAKE NEWS,” which means journalism he disagrees with.
Trump’s motive is creating a world where only Republican-aligned networks follow his narrative, and other legacy news outlets are replaced by a furious storm of sycophantic accounts on social media networks controlled by oligarchs like Larry Ellison and Elon Musk, all following the lead of Trump’s Truth Social account. In Orwellian language in a Truth Social post (9/21/26), the president said he was not against “Free Press,” but was “instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS”—in other words, any news that isn’t subservient to his office.
The press corps needs to invoke a trade union spirit, even with the outlets’ recent win in court. CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang bravely confronted the president when he made a racist comment against her during the Covid crisis from her coveted spot in the White House press corps (Guardian, 5/12/20). She didn’t do anything very extreme; she simply put the president on the hot seat and didn’t back down. But now it’s not just her being attacked. It’s the entire press.
Every reporter should be making this an issue in the press room until Trump caves, if these people are serious about saving their profession and its role in democracy. Let him call you “nasty” or “fake.” Let him spend what little ammo he has, and keep pressing this crisis. The president—sleepy, aging and mind adrift—is only a titanic figure if people don’t stand up to him.
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement (9/18/26):
The press must continue to fight back to protect their rights, not only to access the White House but to access the public records and whistleblowers this administration so desperately wants to keep from them. In the meantime, though, they can take a break from getting lied to and insulted at the White House. There are plenty of places to find news, and reporters will continue to do just that no matter how many tantrums Trump throws on Truth Social. Just like he can’t keep his name on the Kennedy Center, he can’t keep it out of the headlines.
Withholding their attention
Part of the trade union spirit might also be withholding your journalistic labor, a powerful tool against the self-adoring Trump. The good news is that this is starting to happen. “Major television networks suspended their pooled coverage of President Trump” in response to the ban, the New York Times (9/21/26) reported, identifying the outlets as “ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC.”
It’s a rare moment of courage for corporate outlets that fear nothing more than being perceived as taking a side. But if reporters want to convince the world that they are necessary to combat the rise of authoritarianism in places like the United States, now is the time to abandon business as usual and fight back—not to take one side in a partisan battle, but to protect the very institution of journalism.
Because the way things are going, they might not have opportunities to act in the future.
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