Thomas Jefferson once said, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Jefferson’s words still ring true 一 today, as press freedom in the White House is being severely limited, we have lost our rights as journalists to tell the full story.

On Feb. 25, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that President Donald Trump and his administration would be selecting journalists for their press pool. Press access will no longer be determined by the White House Correspondents Association, which has been in control of White House journalists since 1914. This organization has been an avid supporter of the freedom of the press and diverse coverage of the presidency; the suppression of their role reflects a concerning change in the atmosphere of journalistic liberty. 

“The government is limiting free speech [and] freedom of the press. I’m surprised that we’re still talking about this because 20 years ago, no president would have done it, and courts would have shot it down almost immediately,” chief communications officer of the Parkway School District and former journalist Elisa Tomich said.

One of the first shifts, defining limits on First Amendment rights, was the blocking of Associated Press (AP) from the White House, following discourse after the newspaper refused to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” in its guidelines. U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden ruled that AP news reporters will not be restored access to the presidential coverage at the White House, causing further concern about the growing link between governmental opinion and public journalism. If our government fails to ensure a diversity of coverage between political sides by including a range of reporters in the room, the news that the public receives may be biased or even inaccurate. 

“I think that [Trump] shouldn’t get to choose certain people just so they can write in favor of him, journalist and sophomore Yusra Khan said. “We should have a variety of journalists, especially from big sources like the New York Times, and more resources that are ‘unbiased.’ I don’t think you should be able to pick and choose what’s being written about.”

The new administration’s changes reflect distrust in the media that President Donald Trump had previously weaponized. Trump has called for media organizations to be investigated by the Federal Communications Commission, headed by Chairman Brendan Carr. Carr is one of the authors of the Heritage Foundation’s manifesto Project 2025, which prioritizes extreme right-wing policies. In his role, Carr has pushed investigations onto organizations like PBS, Paramount Global, Disney, ABC and Comcast 一 some pertaining to continued Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity (DEI) policies and others simply in punishment for whom Trump dislikes. Either way, these investigations have created a hostile journalism community, fearful of possible retaliation as a cost to their pursuit of truth-telling. 

We have to take a step towards protecting our rights, pushing through the discomfort and the limitations that have been placed on us as journalists, specifically as student journalists. Looking back, we first saw our liberties threatened in the 1988 landmark student press freedom case, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, which reached the Supreme Court. Student rights everywhere were checked, as it was decided that high school newspapers were not public forums. With this case looming over and anti-press rhetoric coming down from the president, it is hard to imagine that administrators will not take a more stringent perspective on student work. 

We have seen progress through the New Voices Bill, which in Missouri hopes to overturn the Kuhlmeier decision and create more protections for student journalists. However, without bills like these, the Trump administration will continue to take a hit on not just those in the White House but smaller communities of student journalists across the country. 

“I left journalism right before Trump was elected the first time. What people thought was inappropriate [then], are things that people do now on a regular basis. To bully reporters, or to shame them didn’t happen then,” Tomich said.

This situation cannot be regarded as an issue pertaining only to national, big-name newspapers, as the restrictions have extended into an even more public sphere of information: social media. In the past year, respondents to a global survey have revealed that 34.5% of social media users utilize the platforms for news information, meaning a large portion of the voting population gains its political knowledge from social media. The rise of social media news comes with several coinciding costs, including algorithm bias, misinformation, and the phenomenon of “echo chambers,” where users are limited towards media environments where they only encounter the same beliefs as their own — a key factor towards the sharp polarization of political parties in the modern day, and perhaps even a reason why these White House restrictions have become more prominent. These consequences have only been augmented by the Trump administration’s activity on social media, manipulating the medium towards promoting a particular view and ostracizing another. 

For example, while some media has been ignored and ousted by the Trump administration, other media has been utilized heavily. X, formerly known as Twitter, banned Trump from use after the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill. When businessman Elon Musk took over the platform, Trump regained access and now posts frequently. Musk, who is now the senior advisor to the president, has used the platform as his own megaphone to push the Trump administration’s agenda. 

Moreover, a computational analysis of X showed that the platform has an algorithmic bias, pushing President Trump’s own messages to the front of feeds. It’s clear that for the 111.3 million X users in the U.S., the administration is misusing its power when it comes to media. By putting down the opposition and promoting a singular side of the story, the media has lost control as an unbiased entity. 

Podcasts have also risen as a popular source of political information, especially in the past election cycle, where both Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris used the platforms to promote their candidacies. In particular, Trump has also utilized podcasts that target young men to promote his agenda to an audience that lacks efficacy. These podcasts, like the Joe Rogan Experience and Impaulsive with Logan Paul, have been the center point of attention for young male users, often a place where this demographic is getting any and all of their news. These podcasts have reached hundreds of thousands of people but are misogynistic and dangerous at the core. The concern comes when someone like the president appears on podcasts that spread misinformation, causing the information to sound credible and feel understandable — despite the fact that inclusive and comprehensive coverage of many topics is missing. 

While it is up to the courts and our government’s system to reinstate diverse coverage of White House events, audiences across the country should be making the deliberate choice to vary their sources of information. Parts of a story shown on one site may be missing on another, so as readers, viewers and listeners, we must understand the value of diverse and reliable information, especially in this time of turmoil. 

“It seems like there’s no shortage of information. I worry about people only turning to certain publications because the news confirms their biases, which [hurts] their understanding of the world. It hurts our democracy,” Tomich said. 

When student journalists are silenced, our democracy is threatened. The more we let our government attack the media, suffocating and suppressing us, the further and further we diverge from the very basis of our country and constitution. Student journalism should not be a privilege but a necessity and a right that every single individual should have in K-12 education. Now, more than ever, we must take the necessary steps to protect it.

“Especially at this time, it’s really important to uphold our rights and our amendments, even when we see them being violated by our President. We should always keep in mind to be hopeful,” Khan said. “You have more power than you think to express your ideas and express your views.”