Press freedom groups are suing the Trump administration over its efforts to block mainstream US news outlets from covering the White House, according to court filings.
The six plaintiffs, which include scholars, advocates and journalists, argue media bans issued by the White House violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution – a critical statute that provides broad protections for the press and freedom of speech.
Their suit comes after CNN, Politico, and MSNOW brought a separate legal challenge over the White House’s attempts to revoke or restrict their press access.
The Knight First Amendment Institute and Yale Law School’s Media and Information Access Clinic filed the legal case on the plaintiffs’ behalf.
The six plaintiffs have asked a New York federal court to declare the White House’s selective media bans violate the First Amendment, and to block the administration from continuing to enforce it.
In court filings, the plaintiffs allege they are no longer able to do their work without access to information delivered by the White House press.
The White House policy, they claim, “deprives the public” of reporting, and forces journalists who cover Donald Trump “to account for the possibility that a critical or ill-advised word about the president may result in their access being summarily restricted or revoked”.
Such a ban has a “distorting effect” on coverage from the White House, the court filing argues.
The BBC has asked the White House for comment.
The lawsuit did not ask a judge to award financial damages, only to require the defendants to cover their legal fees if they win.
Since Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, the White House has engaged in a contentious standoff with many longstanding US media outlets, which the president has frequently accused of publishing “fake news”.
Last month, it banned reporters from CNN, Politico, and MSNOW from the White House, leading several other media organisations to temporarily suspend their pooled coverage of the president in protest.
The affected news outlets sued, arguing the White House was illegally discriminating against them because of the content of their coverage.
A federal judge later ordered the White House to restore the credentials of the impacted journalists while their lawsuit plays out.
The reporters later said they were allowed back into the White House complex.
