National Newspaper Association applauds court decision restoring press access to White House

Oct 15, 2026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Lynne Lance, lynne@nna.org

This week the National Newspaper Association cheered a decision by Judge Timothy Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to restore hard-pass press access to the White House for three news organizations banned by the president.

Cable broadcaster CNN, political publisher Politico and network MS-NOW were granted a preliminary injunction to bar the White House from denying them White House entry.

The court found that the White House had deprived the news organizations of their press passes because the president objected to their coverage. The court said:

“President Trump’s own comments suggest that he intended the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes to alter their reporting on him, bolstering the case that his action here is sufficient to deter a reporter of ordinary firmness from reporting in the same way she had before. ... President Trump likely banned Plaintiffs from the White House because he believes that their reporting is generally inaccurate and biased against him.”

The court noted that the government has some flexibility in governing access to nonpublic areas, but that its access decisions cannot be based on disagreement with a speaker’s views. Judge Kelly also noted that later claims that the three organizations had published information that threatened national security were unsupported by evidence.

NNA was one of more than 50 news organizations that had presented amicus briefs to the court explaining the history of White House press access and why the reporters’ press passes were essential to their work. In an amicus brief by Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the White House’s actions were tagged as unconstitutional.

Reporters Committee president Bruce Brown said, “The First Amendment is clear that once the White House invites in some journalists, it can’t ban others because it doesn’t like their reporting. This is textbook viewpoint discrimination.”

NNA Chair Jeremy Gulban, CEO of CherryRoad Technologies in Parsippany, New Jersey, said that although NNA members were not generally covering the White House, the organization believes standing up for First Amendment rights is critical.

“We are a nonpartisan organization,” he said. “When elected officials at any level of government restrict access because they do not like the way journalists cover their work, it is our job to push back. The ability of reporters to do their jobs must be protected, for the sake of our readers and our communities.”

The preliminary injunction is likely to stand until a petition for a permanent injunction is requested or the circumstances change. It covers only access to the White House and not other venues where controversies about access have continued to arise.