Undaunted: The Associated Press

[Celerity]

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/undaunted-the-associate-press

Unlike Columbia University, unlike a pack of big law firms (e.g. Paul Weiss, Skadden Arps), unlike Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, unlike ABC News, and unlike virtually every House and Senate Republican, the Associated Press (AP) refused to capitulate in the face of authoritarian bullying. Rather than accept its “punishment”—exclusion from key venues at the White House and daily access to Donald Trump, simply because it had the galling temerity to call the Gulf of Mexico…“the Gulf of Mexico”—it took the Trump censoring regime to federal court. This week, it won at the district court level.

Explaining the AP’s position, Executive Editor Julie Pace wrote to the White House chief of staff: “The actions taken by the White House were plainly intended to punish The A.P. for the content of its speech.” Pace continued:



Sadly, the odiously docile White House Press Correspondents’ Association continued business as normal. (It similarly accepted the White House’s unprecedented decision to select members of the press, thereby stocking the pool with toadies and propagandist reporters with close relationships to the president.) Maybe the organization should be renamed the Worthless Press Correspondents’ Association.

But not the AP. It took up the fight at great financial risk. As the judge who handed down the favorable decision explained (citations removed):



snip

[senseandsensibility]

1. Good for them

but the rest of the WH press corps did not stand by their fellow journalists as they should have. To me, that was very telling and disturbing. Glad they won their court case!