Ladder
Ladder: access bans, in North America
A government or official bars a reporter or a news organisation from places or events where news is gathered: briefings, government buildings, press pools, official trips or court hearings. The ban may be announced, or made by refusing entry without notice. It does not stop publication, but it cuts reporters off from officials and from events that other outlets can still cover.
The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.
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1Restrict
Limiting access or credentials for particular reporters or outlets: bans from briefings or buildings, pool changes, credential revocations, accreditation refusals.
When the murder trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam opened in Sumner, Mississippi, on September 19, 1955, Tallahatchie County Sheriff Clarence Strider assigned Black reporters covering the trial, along with Michigan congressman Charles Diggs, to a separate table at the side of the courtroom rather t…
Sustained · 2 sources · Full entry
A Texas state judge in Tyler allowed live television and photography at pretrial hearings and part of the criminal trial of financier Billie Sol Estes, over defense objections.
Reversed 7 June 1965 · 2 sources · Full entry
When United States forces invaded the Caribbean island of Grenada on October 25, 1983, military commanders kept all journalists away from the island for the first two days of fighting, citing operational reasons.
Reversed 1 April 1985 · 2 sources · Full entry
When United States forces invaded Panama on December 20, 1989, the Pentagon kept its national media pool of reporters away from the opening hours of the fighting.
Ongoing 6 April 1990 · 2 sources · Full entry
The U.S. military required reporters covering the 1991 Gulf War to work in escorted "pools" rather than move freely, reviewed pool dispatches before release, and reporters who left the pools were captured or detained.
Sustained 28 February 1991 · 2 sources · Full entry
Ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon assigned about 600 journalists to travel with United States military units under written ground rules restricting what they could report about troop numbers, operations and casualties.
Sustained 14 April 2003 · 1 source · Full entry
On November 7, 2018, the White House suspended the hard pass of CNN's White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, after what Gulf News called a "heated confrontation" between Acosta and the president of the United States, Donald Trump, at a news conference after the country's midterm elections.
Reversed 19 November 2018 · 8 sources · Full entry
After CNN's Jim Acosta questioned President Trump at a news conference and briefly kept hold of a microphone as an intern reached for it, the White House suspended his hard pass, the standing credential letting reporters enter the grounds; a federal judge ordered it restored a week later.
Reversed 19 November 2018 · 2 sources · Full entry
Arizona's 2022 law making it a crime to record police within eight feet after a warning was struck down by a federal judge in July 2023, who found it chilled a substantial amount of activity protected by the First Amendment and was not necessary given other laws already protecting officers.
Reversed 21 July 2023 · 2 sources · Full entry
On May 24, 2024, the governor of Louisiana, a state in the southern United States, Jeff Landry, signed a law that makes it a crime to stay within 25 feet (about 7.6 metres) of a working law enforcement officer after the officer has told a person to step back.
Ongoing 31 January 2025 · 6 sources · Full entry
On January 1, 2025, the "Halo Law" took effect in Florida, a state in the south-eastern United States.
Sustained 1 January 2025 · 2 sources · Full entry
On January 31, 2025, Judge John W. deGravelles of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, a federal trial court, blocked enforcement of the state's 25-foot (7.6-metre) police buffer zone law with a preliminary injunction, an order that keeps the situation as it is whi…
Ongoing 31 January 2025 · 2 sources · Full entry
White House border czar Tom Homan said the administration might stop letting journalists ride along on Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations after an Aurora, Colorado raid captured far fewer people than expected, which officials attributed to leaked details of the operation.
Unknown · 1 source · Full entry
On February 11, 2025, the White House, the office of the president of the United States, began barring journalists from the Associated Press (AP), a United States news agency, from the Oval Office and Air Force One, the aircraft that carries the president.
Ongoing 22 July 2025 · 6 sources · Full entry
On February 25, 2025, the White House announced that it would decide which journalists join the press pool, the small rotating group of reporters who cover the president of the United States in spaces such as the Oval Office and Air Force One and share what they gather with other outlets.
Sustained 22 September 2026 · 3 sources · Full entry
The White House ended the decades-old practice of guaranteeing wire services Associated Press, Reuters and Bloomberg a daily seat in the small press pool that covers the president, making them compete instead for a single rotating print slot alongside other outlets.
Sustained · 1 source · Full entry
On September 19, 2025, the United States Department of Defense, the federal department that provides the country's military forces, issued new credential rules for reporters at the Pentagon, its headquarters building, under the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.
Ongoing 9 April 2026 · 5 sources · Full entry
Beginning on October 15, 2025, reporters from at least 30 news organizations vacated the press workspace at the Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, rather than sign the department's new credential pledge, with a deadline of October 17 to remove their belongings.
Ongoing 9 April 2026 · 2 sources · Full entry
The White House began requiring reporters to make appointments before entering the 'Upper Press' area of the West Wing, home to the press secretary's and senior press aides' offices, citing a need to protect sensitive material after accusing reporters of secretly recording conversations there.
Sustained · 1 source · Full entry
On September 18, 2026, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, announced that CNN, MS NOW and Politico would be banned from the White House.
Ongoing 21 September 2026 · 33 sources · Full entry
A British Columbia court found the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had failed to justify wide exclusion zones that kept journalists away from its enforcement of a logging injunction at the Fairy Creek old-growth blockades, and ordered police to keep the media's role in a free society in mind when dec…
Reversed 20 July 2021 · 1 source · Full entry
3Punish
Legal or physical action against individual journalists or sources: subpoenas and record seizures, prosecutions, arrests, detention, expulsions, visa denials, assault where a government actor is involved.
Minnesota State Patrol troopers arrested CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez and his crew on live television while they covered protests after the police killing of George Floyd.
Reversed 29 May 2020 · 2 sources · Full entry
After federal officers deployed to Portland used tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets on journalists and legal observers covering protests, the American Civil Liberties Union sued, and a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction barring officers from dispersing, arresting or using force ag…
Reversed 23 July 2020 · 3 sources · Full entry
All ladders · Access bans: by country and year · The United States chapter