By Anushri Sood
It’s not just news outlets that have the shits with Donald Trump. It turns out six American citizens are also pissed off. In fact, they feel so strongly that they’re in court claiming that Trump's media bans “deprive the public” of crucial reporting and access to information. It’s a motley crew: a Yale lecturer, a school teacher, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and a couple of journalists, including a student journalist at the University of Pennsylvania, all united in their belief that the news is worth fighting for.
The US courts are getting a real workout when it comes to press freedom. In September, Trump was ordered by a judge to restore White House access to several journalists after CNN, MS NOW and Politico brought a case before the D.C. Federal Court because their passes were revoked without due process.
Over the past decade we’ve seen an unprecedented crackdown on journalists documenting protests, press conferences and expressions of political dissent in Western democracies, such as the US. Since the Trump administration came into power in 2016, it is not uncommon, nor surprising, to hear of an American journalist being yelled at, told off, insulted, ignored, denied access, or even detained or deported.
