The "press" does not forfeit its right to "gripe" by not jumping through any hoops devised by any government official or combination of government officials!
The First Amendment to the Constitution is the law which "shields" the press, leaving it free to "gripe" all it wishes to gripe. No other law is needed. America's wise Founders believed that citizen liberty was safer in the hands of an unfettered press than in the hands of government officials.
"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. It behooves him, too, in his own case, to give no example of concession, betraying the common right of independent opinion . . . ." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1803."The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787.
Did your NC History teachers not include these ideas of freedom in your high school or college courses?