You sound like an egghead.
You make being an egghead sound like a bad thing. I’d rather be an egghead than an airhead.
Appeals Court in 1997. Sherrill v Knight. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/569/124/35083/
Précis:
In 1966, Robert Sherrill (a Washington Correspondent who was already established) applied for and was denied a White House press pass by the Secret Service. So he took it to court.
The SS cited “security reasons” but couldn’t explain what they were, couldn’t point to a defined set of criteria, and provided no mechanism for unsuccessful applicants to understand the reason for the refusal.
He won, in the sense that the District Court ruled that the Secret Service needed to have a more transparent set of criteria, and suitable processes - it couldn’t just arbitrarily deny access to an established correspondent (i.e. without any probable cause, due process or right to recourse) if doing so would be a violation of press freedom (via the First and Fifth Amendment rights.)
The Secret Service appealed, and their appeal was shot down. Its ruling was quite explicit:
“Denial of a White House press pass is violative of the first amendment only if it is based upon the content of the journalist’s speech or otherwise discriminates against a class of protected speech.”
This tells us three things.
One: If journalists get excluded because of their felony convictions, or because they’ve made statements they’ve made that personally threaten POTUS, or because there is a genuine risk to national security (e.g. they’re agents of enemy states posing as journalists), then denying them access to the briefings would not violate the First Amendment.
Two: A blanket decree from POTUS or the Secret Service to deny access to established Washington journalists and media figures AS WELL AS camera and sound crews who’ve all had prior access to the White House briefings, based only on them working for a domestic news outlet, COULD violate the First Amendment.
Three: because POTUS is totally unapologetic about the motivation, his actions appear to be a textbook First Amendment violation scenario as outlined by that Appeals Court.