The battle between President Donald Trump and the press continues.
Two weeks ago, Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House grounds. The media outlets took Trump to court and a federal judge granted the outlets a 14-day restraining order, allowing them to regain their White House press credentials.
That order was set to expire Thursday.
So there was another hearing — and an extension to the restraining order.
The order is now extended until next Tuesday, at which time the judge could extend it for a longer period of time.
Politico’s Irie Sentner wrote, “In the hearing, Kelly appeared to be gravitating toward a more durable injunction over the course of potentially months of litigation.”
For the moment though, we remain in a holding pattern as the outlets continue to argue that Trump is violating their First Amendment rights.
Interestingly, the judge in the case, Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, remains focused on if the media’s Fifth Amendment rights of due process were violated.
“That’s probably the biggest hurdle you all have,” Kelly told the government.
But, Kelly also appears to be skeptical of the administration’s claims that the outlets’ coverage posed a threat to national security. CNN, MS NOW and Politico claim Trump simply doesn’t like their coverage, which would violate their First Amendment protections.
In a recent interview with Time magazine, Trump was asked why he banned the outlets, and he said, “Well, it's just bad story after bad story.”
At Thursday's hearing, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., an attorney for the banned outlets, said, “That interview really is the coup de grace.”
The case appears to be headed for a media victory and a giant loss for Trump in his battle with the media.
But we’ll find out more next week.
Oh, it should be noted that Trump’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico from Air Force One can remain in place. The New York Times’ Erik Wemple has more in “Why a Court Order Didn’t Stop Trump From Keeping Reporters Off Air Force One.”
Douthat’s new gig
After a tumultuous summer for the legendary “60 Minutes” in which the executive producer and several veteran and respected correspondents were let go, CBS News Editor-in-chief Bari Weiss made a surprising announcement. She hired New York Times’ opinion columnist Ross Douthat to join the program as a correspondent even though he had no real TV news experience.
On Thursday, Weiss offered another announcement involving Douthat. This one was much-less surprising. Douthat is joining Weiss’s The Free Press as a columnist. The two used to work together in the opinion section of the Times.
Weiss tweeted, “A dream come true.”
Douthat already wrote his first column with this straight-to-the-point headline: “I’m Writing a Column for The Free Press.”
In the column, Douthat wrote that shortly after Weiss left The New York Times in 2020, he had a conversation with her. “She was in an entrepreneurial mood, making calls and soliciting opinions, and I told her that I thought there was a potential market for a new general-interest publication that was politically independent, competitive with The Atlantic and The New Yorker, free from the ideological strictures of wokeness and the loyalty tests of MAGA.”
The publication, it would seem, is The Free Press, which Weiss started as a Substack called “Common Sense” in 2021 and then rebranded as The Free Press in 2022.
Douthat wrote, “This is not my day job. I am a newly minted correspondent for 60 Minutes, where the goal is to ask probing questions, not sling political hot takes. If all goes well, this column will complement that work, staying a little bit above the partisan fray while giving readers useful frameworks (or, sometimes, truly eccentric frameworks) through which to understand our strange-and-getting-stranger century.”
So far, Douthat has done two stories in the first three episodes of the new season of “60 Minutes.” One was an interview with Patrick Clancy, the ex-husband of a woman accused of murdering their three children. The other was a profile of North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.
Stephen A.’s apology
Earlier this week, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith faced heavy criticism following his remarks about the sudden retirement of Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman Lane Johnson, who cited mental health as a major reason why he was stepping away. On Wednesday, during his show “First Take,” Smith appeared to make light of Johnson’s mental health and suggested the real reason he was retiring was because the Eagles weren’t playing well.
“First Take” guest Kimberly A. Martin tried to call out Smith in real time, telling him, “I feel like you’re making light of the situation.”
Later Wednesday, Smith tried to apologize on his SiriusXm show, but made matters worse when he said his comments were “misconstrued.” Smith did add that he wasn’t “making light of mental health, I would never do that,” and chronicled his own mental health struggles over the years.
But his backtrack didn't go far enough for most.
The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand penned a column saying Smith embarrassed himself with his comments and that he should “simply apologize.”
On Thursday, Smith opened “First Take” with a lengthy apology, saying, “Here’s the reality of the situation. I was wrong.” He added, “I messed up.”
He apologized to Johnson, the Eagles and to those struggling with their mental health.
Smith said, “The biggest regret that I have for all of this is the fact that it may have given people that wanted to open the door to seek help a reason to pause and hesitate and not do so. And I can’t emphasize enough how sorry I am about that because it is a real issue.”
He also said it took “courage” for Johnson and others to publicly open up about mental health.
All in all, it seemed like a sincere and genuine apology — one that Smith says ESPN did not order.
But it is another reminder of what happens when you have commentators like Smith who provide hours upon hours of content a week and are expected to be provocative and entertaining.
As Marchand wrote, “Talk show hosts mostly don’t know anything, but have to pretend they know everything. Smith and others are on your screen to entertain, not inform. If it is debating LeBron versus MJ or the Dallas Cowboys defense or who should be ranked No. 1, it really is no harm, no foul. But when you are talking about a serious topic, like mental health issues, don’t mock someone.”
He added, “But after all the clamor is done, he should make sure next time he gives himself a little more time to think before he takes on serious matters. Life is not a show.”
News from Amarillo
For this item, I turn it over to my Poynter colleague Angela Fu.
The paper of record in Amarillo, Texas — population: 205,000 — is down to a single high school sports reporter. The Amarillo Globe-News, which is owned by USA Today Co., laid off the rest of its editorial staff “without warning” last week, the Amarillo Tribune reported. The layoffs came just days after multiple sports reporters across the chain’s papers were terminated. USA Today Co. also executed also a round of layoffs in September as part of a reorganization of its audience team. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Media news, tidbits and interesting links for your weekend review
- This Wall Street Journal article is getting all kinds of attention in the past day: Dana Mattioli, Drew Hinshaw, Rebecca Ballhaus and Joe Parkinson with “‘Honey Please’: Kimberly Guilfoyle Pushed Donor to Wire $100,000 to Her Amex Account.”
- And here’s Mediaites’ Alex Griffing with “‘Kimberly Guilfoyle is a Grifter!’ Trump Donor at Center of Bombshell Story GOES OFF In Wild MS NOW Interview.”
- The New York Times’ Abbie VanSickle with “Supreme Court, for Now, Sides With Trump Administration in TV Ad Fight.”
- For Nieman Lab, Philip M. Napoli, Adam Meskouri, Anjini Mani, Grant Socol and Harrison Walley with “Fox News attacks the media roughly every 15 minutes, our study finds. (CNN? Every 140 minutes.)”
- The headline on this story is almost too jaw-dropping to believe. The New York Times’ Chris Cameron with “Fort Hood Shooter’s Execution Will be Public and Streamed Live, Pentagon Says.”
- Former NBC News and Yahoo executive Alex Wallace has been named chief operating officer of The Washington Post. The Wrap’s A.J. Katz has more here.
- The Washington Post’s Elahe Izadi, Caitlin Gibson, Emily Yahr and Maura Judkis with “Was ‘30 Rock’ the perfect TV comedy? Let’s discuss.”
More resources for journalists
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- Protect your sources, your audience and yourself with specialized training on trauma, suicide, addiction and mental health disparities with The Mental Health Reporting Project — developed in partnership with The Carter Center. Free due to the generous support of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.
Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].
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