EXCUSE ME. WHERE’S MY WHITE HOUSE PRESS PASS? 😂
CNN, MS NOW and Politico are fighting to get back into the White House. That got me wondering who exactly gets to call themselves “the press” in 2026.
📰 I READ THIS STORY AND HAD A PRETTY SIMPLE QUESTION.
President Trump barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House grounds. The three news organizations sued, arguing that their access was revoked in retaliation for coverage the administration disliked and that the action violated First Amendment and due-process protections. The White House argues that physical access to the White House is a privilege rather than an unrestricted right. As of September 22, a federal court hearing on their request for emergency relief is scheduled for September 23.
Naturally, the whole thing immediately became another political fight.
Free press. First Amendment. Government retaliation. Media bias. Trump. CNN. The people’s White House.
You know the routine.
But I read the story and started laughing for a completely different reason.
I own Freak Sites, Inc. I operate multiple niche media websites. I write about current events. I publish commentary. I can write about the President, interview people, publish photographs and video and distribute all of it online.
So…
EXCUSE ME. WHERE’S MY WHITE HOUSE PRESS PASS? 😂
⭐ I’M SERIOUS. WELL… SORT OF.
If the argument were simply, “We publish news, therefore we have a constitutional right to walk into the White House,” then I might need to start packing.
I’ll grab a notebook. Charge my phone. Find something respectable to wear.
Maybe The Writers Freak can come with me. He has three arms, so he can hold a microphone, notebook and camera at the same time.
Very efficient journalist. 😂
But that isn’t actually the legal argument CNN, MS NOW and Politico are making. Their claim is narrower: they already had White House access, and they say the administration took it away because it objected to their coverage. The government disputes that characterization and argues that access can be restricted.
That distinction matters.
🏛️ FREEDOM OF THE PRESS DOESN’T COME WITH A RESERVED CHAIR.
One of the important cases in this area goes back to 1977.
In Sherrill v. Knight, a federal appeals court held that when the government denies a White House press pass to a journalist who otherwise qualifies, First Amendment and due-process interests can require standards, notice and an explanation. It did not say that every person capable of publishing has an automatic constitutional right to enter the White House.
So I can publish something about the President this afternoon.
So can CNN.
So can somebody with a Substack.
So can a guy sitting at his kitchen table with a podcast.
The freedom to publish and the right to physically enter a government facility are not the same thing.
And that is where this story gets much more interesting than the usual political shouting match.
WHO EXACTLY IS “THE PRESS” NOW?
This was probably easier to picture in 1849.
You owned a newspaper. You had a printing press. Somebody bought ink by the barrel. People folded sheets of paper and somebody yelled:
NEWS! READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Pretty obvious. 😂
Even by 1950, the media universe was fairly easy to understand. You had newspapers, radio, magazines, wire services and television arriving in living rooms across America.
A relatively small number of organizations had the equipment, people and money required to gather information and distribute it to millions of people.
There was a fairly obvious distinction between the press and the audience.
Today?
Good luck.
📱 TODAY I CAN BECOME A PUBLISHER BEFORE LUNCH.
Anybody can start:
- A website
- A newsletter
- A podcast
- A YouTube channel
- A livestream
- A Substack
- A political publication
- A local-news site
- A network of niche media sites
You can cover city hall from your kitchen. Interview a presidential candidate on a podcast. Publish an investigation without owning a newspaper press. Reach a larger audience on YouTube than some traditional television programs reach on cable.
The machinery that once separated a media company from almost everybody else has changed dramatically.
PUBLISHING BECAME SOFTWARE.
That changed the entire definition of what a publisher can look like.
😂 WHICH BRINGS ME BACK TO CNN.
This is the part I find comical.
We sometimes talk about these fights as though a tiny local newspaper with four employees and a printing press in the back room is being thrown off the courthouse steps.
That isn’t what modern mass media looks like.
CNN is part of Warner Bros. Discovery, which has just been acquired by Paramount Skydance in a deal Reuters values at roughly $110 billion. The combined operation puts major entertainment, film, television, streaming and news properties—including CNN and CBS News—under the same corporate umbrella.
That doesn’t mean CNN loses constitutional protections.
Of course not.
But it does mean we should be honest about what we’re looking at.
This is not the local newspaper in 1849.
This is a gigantic modern media business.
📺 MS NOW ISN’T EXACTLY PRINTING FLYERS IN SOMEBODY’S GARAGE EITHER.
MS NOW, formerly MSNBC, is part of Versant, the media company spun out of Comcast. Versant reported about $6.7 billion in 2025 revenue, including more than $1.5 billion from advertising.
Politico is owned by Axel Springer, a major transatlantic media company whose portfolio also includes Business Insider, BILD, WELT and Morning Brew. Axel Springer acquired Politico in 2021.
Again, none of this decides the constitutional case.
But it matters when we talk about “the media” as though we’re discussing some fragile little printing operation fighting for enough nickels to publish tomorrow morning.
We’re talking about sophisticated organizations with professional newsrooms, lawyers, corporate ownership, advertising operations, subscriptions, technology, distribution and enormous audiences.
💰 ACCESS HAS BUSINESS VALUE TOO.
This may be the part people miss when the conversation immediately becomes political.
A White House reporter isn’t sitting inside the building simply because it looks nice on a résumé.
Access creates content.
A reporter asks the question. The camera captures the answer. The network broadcasts the clip. The website publishes the story. Social media spreads it. The audience reacts. Other outlets quote it. The story becomes part of the next news cycle.
That attention has economic value.
Modern news organizations operate journalistic institutions, but they are also businesses competing for:
- Viewers
- Readers
- Subscribers
- Advertising
- Distribution
- Exclusive interviews
- Video
- Breaking news
- Attention
Lose access and you potentially lose some of the material your competitors are using to attract the same audience.
That doesn’t make their First Amendment argument illegitimate.
It simply means there is a business underneath the constitutional principle.
If you miss that, I think you miss part of the story.
📰 THESE COMPANIES AREN’T JUST REPORTING NEWS. THEY’RE COMPETING FOR ATTENTION.
This is where words like “narrative” start getting thrown around.
One side says a news organization is reporting and exercising editorial judgment.
Another side says the organization is selecting facts and framing stories to advance a narrative.
Those arguments aren’t new.
What is new is the scale.
A national television network or global digital publisher can take one event in Washington and distribute its version of that event to millions of people almost instantly.
The President can now bypass those organizations and distribute his own version directly through social media and White House-controlled channels.
Independent publishers can publish their own interpretation.
Podcasters can spend three hours discussing it.
YouTubers can cut it apart frame by frame.
And everybody is competing for the same thing:
YOUR ATTENTION.
That’s a very different media environment from somebody buying tomorrow morning’s newspaper.
🎙️ SO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN EVERYBODY CAN BE MEDIA?
Imagine a White House room with space for twenty reporters.
Now imagine two hundred organizations want those seats.
Now imagine twenty thousand people have legitimate publishing operations and want access.
Who qualifies?
Is it based on:
- Audience size?
- Years in business?
- Original reporting?
- Full-time journalists?
- Revenue?
- Reputation?
- Membership in a press organization?
- A Washington bureau?
- Frequency of publication?
What about a podcaster with ten million listeners?
A YouTube news channel with five million subscribers?
A local newspaper with 8,000 readers?
A one-person investigative publication?
A photographer?
A documentary filmmaker?
A blogger?
A company operating eight niche media websites?
Where exactly does “the press” begin and end?
And who gets to decide?
That question is going to get harder, not easier.
✍️ THE FIRST AMENDMENT DOESN’T LIST APPROVED MEDIA COMPANIES.
It doesn’t say CNN.
It doesn’t say Fox.
It doesn’t say NBC.
It doesn’t say The New York Times.
And unfortunately for my travel schedule…
it doesn’t say Freak Sites either. 😂
The Constitution protects speech and the press broadly. But a White House credential introduces another issue entirely: physical access, security, capacity and government rules.
That is why the current lawsuit isn’t simply asking whether CNN, MS NOW and Politico are allowed to criticize President Trump.
They obviously continue to report on him. In fact, the three organizations were covering Trump at the United Nations today using U.N.-issued media credentials while simultaneously fighting the White House ban in court.
The legal dispute is over whether the administration can remove their established White House access under these circumstances.
That is a much narrower question than:
“Does the press have freedom?”
😂 I’M STILL WAITING FOR MY BADGE.
I checked the mail.
Nothing.
No invitation.
No reserved chair.
No Secret Service credential.
Not even a little placard that says:
THE SALES FREAK — FREAK SITES
Frankly, I’m disappointed. 😂
But the ridiculous hypothetical actually demonstrates the point.
The fact that I operate media websites and publish commentary does not automatically mean the White House has to move somebody out of a chair and let me sit down.
Likewise, the fact that CNN is part of an enormous corporate media organization doesn’t erase whatever constitutional protections its journalists have.
Both things can be true.
⭐ THE BIGGER STORY MAY BE WHAT HAPPENED TO “THE MEDIA.”
For generations, mass communication was expensive.
You needed printing presses, television studios, broadcast towers, distribution agreements, news bureaus, large staffs and enormous amounts of money.
That naturally created a relatively small number of organizations capable of speaking to huge audiences.
Today I can publish this Parking Spot from a computer.
I can add photographs, video, links, research and updates. Search engines can discover it. Social media can distribute it. Somebody can send it across the country in a second.
The cost of becoming a publisher collapsed.
That doesn’t make Freak Sites CNN.
Let’s not get carried away. 😂
CNN operates a worldwide news organization. MS NOW runs a national television news operation. Politico employs professional journalists covering government and policy every day.
Freak Sites is something entirely different.
But underneath all of them is the same basic process:
CREATE INFORMATION → PUBLISH IT → DISTRIBUTE IT → FIND AN AUDIENCE.
The difference is scale.
And scale is no longer the same thing as permission to publish.
📰 MAYBE THAT’S THE REALLY INTERESTING QUESTION.
When somebody says:
“The press has a right to…”
My brain now asks:
Which press?
The television network?
The newspaper?
The podcast?
The newsletter?
The YouTuber?
The independent journalist?
The blogger?
The niche publisher?
All can engage in journalism.
Not all of them can physically fit into the White House briefing room.
So somewhere, the broad constitutional principle of a free press has to meet the practical reality of limited physical access.
And in 2026, that intersection looks nothing like it did in 1849.
✍️ THAT’S WHY I PARKED THIS ON WRITERS FREAK.
Yes, the story involves politics.
Yes, it involves President Trump.
Yes, it involves CNN, MS NOW and Politico.
But underneath the political fight is a much bigger writing and media question:
Who gets to publish? Who gets recognized as press? What separates journalism from commentary? What happens when enormous corporate media companies and one-person publishers are all using the same basic technology to put words, video and ideas in front of the public?
And maybe most interesting of all:
What happens when the scarce thing is no longer the ability to publish—but access?
That belongs on Writers Freak.
Because Writers Freak isn’t just about novels and people arguing over commas.
It’s about the entire world around words:
- Books
- News
- Newspapers
- Journalism
- Media
- Publishing
- Podcasts
- Websites
- AI
- Advertising
- Distribution
- Attention
And apparently…
White House press passes. 😂
🅿️ GOT SOMETHING WORTH PUTTING IN WRITING?
Maybe you agree with CNN.
Maybe you agree with President Trump.
Maybe you think both sides are making legitimate arguments.
Maybe you think everybody involved has lost perspective.
Write it.
Research it. Make the argument. Show the evidence. Let somebody disagree with you.
That’s part of what writing is supposed to do.
I’m building my own Parking Spots on Writers Freak using the same product I opened to everybody else.
A standard Writers Freak Parking Spot is $7 one time.
You can add your writing, photos, links, contact information, calls to action and up to two supported embedded videos. You get your own page and URL, and if something changes later, you can update it.
No monthly fee. No scheduled renewal. No scheduled expiration.
Seven bucks.
And apparently you don’t even need a White House press credential. 😂