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Trump-Appointed Judge Rules White House Can't Retaliate Against AP Over Gulf of Mexico Dispute
A spokesperson for the news agency said the ruling "affirms the fundamental right of the press and public to speak freely without government retaliation."
Apr 08, 2025
A federal judge appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term ruled Tuesday that the White House cannot cut off The Associated Press' access to the Republican leader because of the news agency's refusal to use his preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico.
"About two months ago, President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The Associated Press did not follow suit. For that editorial choice, the White House sharply curtailed the AP's access to coveted, tightly controlled media events with the president," wrote Judge Trevor N. McFadden, who is based in Washington, D.C.
Specifically, according to the news outlet, "the AP has been blocked since February 11 from being among the small group of journalists to cover Trump in the Oval Office or aboard Air Force One, with sporadic ability to cover him at events in the East Room."
The AP responded to the restrictions by suing White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, "seeking a preliminary injunction enjoining the government from excluding it because of its viewpoint," McFadden noted in his 41-page order. "Today, the court grants that relief."
The judge explained that "this injunction does not limit the various permissible reasons the government may have for excluding journalists from limited-access events. It does not mandate that all eligible journalists, or indeed any journalists at all, be given access to the president or nonpublic government spaces. It does not prohibit government officials from freely choosing which journalists to sit down with for interviews or which ones' questions they answer. And it certainly does not prevent senior officials from publicly expressing their own views."
"The court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints," he stressed. "The Constitution requires no less."
McFadden blocked his own order from taking effect before next week, giving the Trump administration time to respond or appeal. Still, AP spokesperson Lauren Easton said Tuesday that "we are gratified by the court's decision."
"Today’s ruling affirms the fundamental right of the press and public to speak freely without government retaliation," Easton added. "This is a freedom guaranteed for all Americans in the U.S. Constitution."
NPRreported that "an AP reporter and photographer were turned back from joining a reporting pool on a presidential motorcade early Tuesday evening, almost two hours after the decision came down."
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Journalist Burned Alive in Tent Strike Among Scores of Gazans Killed by Israeli Forces
"How many more Israeli war crimes do we need to witness?" asked one Australian journalist.
Apr 07, 2025
Scores of Palestinians have been killed by Israel Defense Forces' bombing of the Gaza Strip since Sunday, including numerous children as well as a journalist who was burned alive in a Monday strike targeting a tent full of sleeping journalists.
The IDF strike on the journalists' tent outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza at approximately 2:00 am local time Monday killed Palestine Today reporter Hilmi al-Faqaawi and another man, identified as Yusuf Al-Khazandar, both of whom burned to death as helpless bystanders tried but were unable to rescue them from the flames.
Al Jazeerareported that nine other people—including journalists Hassan Eslaih, Ahmed al-Agha, Muhammad Fayek, Abdallah Al-Attar, Ihab al-Bardini, and Mahmoud Awad—were injured in the strike. Palestine's Quds News Networkpublished footage of the burning tent, as well as Eslaih and al-Bardini in the hospital, the latter suffering from wounds to his head caused by shrapnel, a fragment of which pierced one of his eyes.
"The international community's failure to act has allowed these attacks on the press to continue with impunity."
The IDF said it carried out the strike in a bid to assassinate Eslaih, whom it accused of being a member of Hamas' Khan Younis Brigade posing as a journalist, partly because of his on-the-ground coverage of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. Eslaih, who previously worked for The Associated Press and CNN, had repeatedly been threatened by Israel amid his tireless coverage of its annihilation of Gaza.
The latest attack on journalists by Israel—which has killed well over 200 media professionals since October 2023—drew global condemnation and calls for U.S. corporate media to give more coverage to Israeli targeting of media professionals.
"This is not the first time Israel has targeted a tent sheltering journalists in Gaza. The international community's failure to act has allowed these attacks on the press to continue with impunity, undermining efforts to hold perpetrators accountable," said Sara Qudah, the Middle East and North Africa director at the Committee to Protect Journalists. "CPJ calls on authorities to allow the injured, some of whom have sustained severe burns, to be evacuated immediately for treatment and to stop attacking Gaza’s already devastated press corps."
🚨CPJ denounces Israel’s targeted airstrike that hit a media tent in southern Gaza on Monday, killing one journalist and injuring eight others, and calls on the international community to act to stop Israel killing Palestinian journalists. Read more: cpj.org?p=470309
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— Committee to Protect Journalists (@pressfreedom.bsky.social) April 7, 2025 at 10:09 AM
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a statement, "We call on all U.S. media outlets to air the video of journalists burning alive in their media tent after the Israeli government's bombing."
"Journalists must be the first in line to expose the intentional mass murder of fellow journalists, and the American people must be able to see the horror perpetrated in Gaza with American weapons and taxpayer dollars," CAIR added. "We call on every state and national association of journalists to condemn the Israeli government's bombing of a media tent in Gaza and express solidarity with the Palestinian journalists facing targeted assassination for just doing their jobs."
Antoinette Lattouf, a prolific Australian journalist, wrote on the Bluesky social network: "I feel physically ill. How are images of Palestinian journalists being burned alive not top story on every news site? This is after we watched the execution of paramedics. How many more Israeli war crimes do we need to witness? Or have we accepted our institutions and their so-called values are a lie?"
Monday's strikes followed Sunday bombing that killed dozens of Palestinians, including strikes on the al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City that reportedly left 11 Palestinians, including nine children, dead and many others wounded. Other deadly IDF air and artillery strikes were also reported in cities including Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah. These attacks included an airstrike on a community kitchen in Khan Younis that killed seven people, at least three of whom were reportedly children.
Since October 2023, Israel's bombing, invasion, and "complete siege" of Gaza have left more than 180,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Israel's policies and practices in the war are the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case brought by South Africa and backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs.
Additionally, nearly everyone in Gaza has been forcibly displaced, sometimes multiple times, as Israeli forces move to seize large tracts of the Gaza Strip for a so-called "security zone" and Jewish recolonization. Israeli officials claim this ethnic cleansing is being carried out in coordination with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has walked back some of his earlier comments asserting that the United States would "take over" Gaza, empty it of Palestinians, and build the "Riviera of the Middle East" in the Mediterranean enclave.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in the United States from Hungary for talks with Trump and others on topics including Gaza, the hostages held by Hamas, Iran policy, and the 17% tariff Trump imposed on Israel last week, even though the country—which counts the U.S. as its biggest trade partner—lifted all levies on American imports in a bid to avert the move.
The Israeli newspaper
Haaretzreported that Netanyahu's aircraft deviated from the normal Budapest-Washington, D.C. route by about 250 miles (400 km) to avoid the airspace of the Netherlands, Ireland, and Iceland, which officials feared could enforce arrest warrants issued last year by the International Criminal Court against the prime minister for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including using starvation as a weapon of war. Far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Trump have both rejected the warrants, and the latter has sanctioned the ICC.
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Progressive Movement Mourns Loss of Beloved Media Scholar Robert McChesney
"The world of media scholarship, journalists far and wide, and anyone who cares about a free press, a functioning democracy, and a better world has suffered a tremendous loss," said Common Dreams' managing editor.
Mar 27, 2025
Robert McChesney—prominent media scholar, Free Press co-founder, dogged defender of democracy, and friend of Common Dreams—died Tuesday at the age of 72.
McChesney's many books, nearly three dozen in total which he either wrote or edited, include: Rich Media, Poor Democracy (2000); The Problem With the Media (2004); The Death and Life of American Journalism (2010, co-authored with John Nichols); Dollarocracy (2012, also with Nichols);Digital Disconnect (2013); and Digital Democracy (2014).
He was the Gutgsell endowed professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, and also co-founded the Illinois Initiative on Global Information and Communication Policy with Dan Schiller.
"Bob McChesney was a brilliant scholar whose ideas and insights reached far beyond the classroom. He opened the eyes of a generation of academics, journalists, politicians and activists—including me—to how media structures and policies shape our broader politics and possibilities," said Free Press president and co-CEO Craig Aaron.
Free Press mourns the passing of co-founder Robert W. McChesney, a brilliant scholar & generous mentor who captured corporate media's profound influence on the health of our democracy. https://www.freepress.net/news/press-releases/free-press-mourns-death-co-founder-and-scholar-robert-w-mcchesney
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— Free Press (@freepress.bsky.social) March 27, 2025 at 8:08 AM
"While McChesney spent much of his career charting the problems of the media and the critical junctures that created our current crises, he believed fundamentally in the public's ability to solve those problems and build a media system that serves people's needs and sustains democracy," Aaron continued.
"His ideas were bold and transformative, and he had little patience for tinkering around the edges," he added. "Rather than fighting over Washington's narrow vision of what was possible, he always said—and Bob loved a good sports metaphor—that we needed to throw the puck down to the other end of the ice."
A Common Dreams reader, contributor, promoter, and supporter for over 25 years, McChesney will be deeply missed by all those associated with the independent, nonprofit news organization.
"Both in my personal political development earlier in life and as a working journalist in the profession," said Common Dreams managing editor Jon Queally, "McChesney had a profound influence on how I came to understand media systems and the political economy overall."
"Rich Media, Poor Democracy pretty much changed my life, a book that I once taught to high school students—which they loved, by the way—as it explains, in an accessible but penetrating fashion, just how corrupting the news and information landscape can be when it is controlled wholesale by corporate interests," Queally continued.
"The world of media scholarship, journalists far and wide, and anyone who cares about a free press, a functioning democracy, and a better world has suffered a tremendous loss with the passing of Bob McChesney," he added. "Our hearts go out to his family and many friends."
Rutgers University communications professor Andrew Kennis also highlighted the importance of Rich Media, Poor Democracy. He told Common Dreams that McChesney—who along with Noam Chomsky wrote openers to his 2022 book Digital-Age Resistance: Journalism, Social Movements, and the Media Dependence Model—influenced his own work.
"Bob McChesney's impact on media was immeasurable," Kennis said in a phone interview. "He was a steadfast public intellectual who inspired millions with accessible critiques of capitalism and its corrosive effects on democracy. He argued that the United States' descent into neoliberalism came at the expense of popular sovereignty."
Kennis said he got to know McChesney through Chomsky, adding that "Noam called Bob 'pretty much the best political economist' in the country, and practically the world."
"Bob very much self-identified as a political economist in general, but especially about communications," he explained.
In a 2013 appearance on "Moyers & Company," hosted by Bill Moyers on PBS, McChesney joined with friend and frequent co-author Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation, to discuss their book, Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex Is Destroying America.
"Democracy means rule of the people: one person, one vote," McChesney explained to Moyers during the interview. "Dollarocracy means the rule of the dollars: one dollar, one vote. Those with lots of dollars have lots of power. Those with no dollars have no power."
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote the introduction to Dollarocracy. Jeff Cohen, founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Media (FAIR) and founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, called his friend McChesney a "proud socialist" who "told me how glad he was to go door to door" canvassing for Sanders when he ran for president in 2016 and 2020.
Writing for FAIR, Cohen said that "no one did more to analyze the negative and censorial impacts of our media and information systems being controlled by giant, amoral corporations."
"Particularly enlightening was his 2014 book, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy," Cohen continued, "in which McChesney explained in step-by-step detail how the internet that held so much promise for journalism and democracy was being strangled by corporate greed, and by government policy that put greed in the driver's seat."
"That was a key point for Bob in all his work: He detested the easy phrase 'media deregulation,' when in fact government policy was actively and heavily regulating the media system (and so many other systems) toward corporate control," Cohen added.
In 2015, at the National Conference for Media Reform in Denver hosted by Free Press, McChesney sat down with Common Dreams to discuss the importance of independent outlets as well as the inspiring promise of journalism that can "change the world" by exposing one person at a time to news or information they might not otherwise ever learn or come by:
Robert McChesney on Common Dreams
Nichols wrote for The Nation Thursday that while McChesney was a "globally respected communications scholar who was wholly welcome in the halls of academia," he "was never satisfied working within an ivory tower."
Indeed, a lesser-known aspect of McChesney's work was his immersion in one of the late 20th century's emerging music scenes.
"One of the first things that Bob did to have an impact on society was with the grunge movement in Seattle," Kennis told Common Dreams. "That was kind of his street cred before he went full nerd."
"Bob was doing some independent journalism and was studying in Seattle and was closely covering the emergence of Nirvana and other garage bands back then; that's how he got his first big dip into journalism," he said. "And he was a big fan, and part of the fabric of indie rock."
McChesney—who studied history and political economy at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington and earned a Ph.D. in communications from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1989—co-founded the The Rocket, an alternative weekly newspaper that highlighted groups such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees, Sleater-Kinney, and Mudhoney as they rose to prominence. Ironically, The Rocket was sold to a big San Francisco publisher whose financial mismanagement killed the once-independent paper.
"Bob was a towering character," Kennis said, "always dedicated from the beginning to the end to the good fight."
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