Media elites are calling for a national boycott of President Donald Trump in response to the Associated Press’s feud with the White House.
If the establishment media boycott Trump, networks would likely suffer financially, while their biased coverage would not seep into the national discussion and distort the president’s actions.
Americans’ trust in the establishment media to report current events “fully, accurately and fairly” plummeted to a record low in 2024, Gallup polling found in October.
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The media elites’ outrage comes as the White House has remained disciplined and ideologically consistent in the wake of the Associated Press’ refusal to recognize the “Gulf of America” as the official name, which precipitated the White House barring the outlet from White House events.
“Nobody has the right to go into the Oval Office and ask the president of the United States questions,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday. “If we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable.”
“This isn’t just about the Gulf of America,” White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich told Axios on Monday. “This is about AP weaponizing language through their stylebook to push a partisan worldview in contrast with the traditional and deeply held beliefs of many Americans and many people around the world.”
Budowich’s post underscores the AP’s decision to maintain a style guide that enforces far-left speech codes on political discourse. Those codes include characterizing black people as “Black” people, opposes describing people by their biological sex, and cancels the term “anchor babies.”
Many media elites, reacting to the AP’s feud, are calling for a national boycott of Trump.
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“News outlets then must rally to the cause, by offering supportive statements to the court hearing the case, writing op-Ed’s backing the AP, and, if necessary, refusing to cover presidential movements in solidarity, until Trump backs down,” Jim Acosta, a former CNN anchor, wrote on his Substack:
News organizations in Washington should be banding together to send the message that members of the press will determine how they cover the news. Not the White House. Not the man behind the Resolute Desk, no matter how he redraws the world’s maps. The presidential Sharpie is not mightier than the pen.
Jim Friedlich, CEO and executive director of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, a nonprofit that owns the Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote in an opinion article that the establishment media must “commitment to collective action” against Trump:
In the Associated Press case, for example, what would happen if the AP’s erstwhile competitors, including Reuters, CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, refused to attend similar White House events unless and until the AP’s access is restored?
This collective action would leave the White House speaking only to media properties like Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax, favored only by its base. The loss of a larger megaphone would damage the administration’s voice and offend its considerable ego.
The phrase “an attack on one is an attack on all” is drawn from Article 5 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty that created NATO — another organization under criticism by President Trump. What would such a commitment to collective action, a “NATO for news,” mean in practical terms?
CNN’s Brian Stelter, who falsely claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation, wrote Friday that many of his media colleagues have suggested a “mass boycott” of White House coverage, allowing “Breitbart … to take their places”:
Many readers have asked me what other news outlets are doing to support The AP. Some have suggested a mass boycott is in order. Consider the possibility, however, that the Trump White House wants this fight. Wants journalists to act like opponents instead of observers. If the entire press pool skipped a Trump photo op in solidarity with The AP, wouldn’t the White House welcome Breitbart and One America News to take their places?
My sense is that The AP’s editors and their peers at other media institutions are having backchannel conversations about what to do. “We have to be strategic,” one top editor told me, and keep covering the White House without just accepting how The AP is being treated.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
