AP is reporting that "The Democratic-controlled Washington State House of Representatives earlier this year declined to issue press credentials to three journalists that would have granted access to parts of the Capitol in Olympia that are off-limits to the general public."
The body said they were not bona fide journalists because they are participants in the political arena, advocating for certain agendas and hosting or speaking at rallies.
Because the three are not Leftists, they cannot be recognized as journalists.
Because the three journalists hold conservative views, they were denied passes and treated like part of the general public who are restricted from certain parts of the Capitol.
The three filed a federal lawsuit and asked the court for an emergency temporary restraining order that would force the House to give them passes in the closing days of the session. The judge denied their request.
Be informed, not misled.
The group includes Ari Hoffman, host of “Seattle’s Conservative Talk” show on AM 570 KVI; Brandi Kruse, host of the podcast “unDivided”; and Jonathan Choe, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank.
The Democrats have "Rules for thee, but not for me."
Their lawyer, Jackson Maynard, told U.S. District Judge David Estudillo on Monday that the process used to deny them press credentials was vague and arbitrarily applied, violating their due-process rights, and withholding access because of their disagreement with the lawmakers’ political views violates their constitutional rights of free speech and free press.
Maynard said, “My clients are the eyes and ears of the people in the legislative process. Their voices and opinions should not be excluded.”
In his ruling, Estudillo said the group failed to show that they were denied passes because of their political affiliations — which would be a violation of their First Amendment rights — and failed to show that the process was arbitrary, which would have violated their due process rights.
Their lawyer, Jackson Maynard, says he and the non-Leftist journalists will continue the battle.
Jessica Goldman, the lawyer for the House, said they were confident that any further litigation would end with the same conclusion — that the press pass policy complies with the Constitution and protects the lawmakers’ working space.
Goldman said, "Legislatures across the country have grappled with how to address the changing media landscape. TV, radio, and newspaper reporters are being joined by podcasters and other user-generated content producers. Conservative influencers have made regular appearances at news conferences and events hosted by the Trump administration."
Are they afraid of change? So much for their "progressivism."
Goldman told Estudillo that the group was not denied passes because of their viewpoints, but because they were activists for political causes rather than independent monitors.
For example, in addition to being a talk radio host, Hoffman is involved with Let’s Go Washington, a political action committee that campaigns for initiatives. Kruse is also involved in that group, as well as the group Future 42, where she criticizes Democratic policymakers and lobbies for or against proposed bills.
Choe requested the press pass as a representative of “Discovery Institute/Frontlines TPUSA.” Discovery is a think tank, and Turning Point USA says its “mission is to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government,” lawyers said in their filing.
Let's get real. The state-controlled media does not want ideas other than its own put in front of the people. Particularly Christian and/or conservative ideas.
Associated Press says, "The Washington State Capitol Correspondents Association guidelines for granting press passes say the person must be a bona fide journalist,” and there must be a line “between professional journalism and political or policy work.” The association shifted the credentialing process to the Legislature after the three threatened a lawsuit in 2025. The Senate eventually issued the passes, but the House took over the process and denied the pass requests.
This is not just a local issue.
The FCC is concerned about the biased, Leftist control of the American press.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr blasted the legacy media during a Tuesday interview with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle, pointing to their “wildly out-of-touch” nature and hoaxes that “go in one direction.”
“There’s a big gap in trust between legacy national media and local news journalists,” Carr said. “In fact, we can talk about this more, but you see newspapers closed by the dozen all across the country. We’ve lost a lot of really good gumshoe reporting.”
According to the FCC leader, local television stations are some of the few places left to get real gumshoe reporting, "and we want to do a lot more at the FCC to try to support them and empower them.”
Carr went on to say, “Something like only nine percent of people have a great deal of trust in national news media."
“And that’s not just a throwaway — there’s actually a study that says 15 percent of people would eat gas station sushi, but only 9 percent of people have trust in the legacy national media, and it’s for a confluence of factors,” he said.
1. The first factor Carr mentioned of why the legacy media is untrustworthy is them being “just wildly out-of-touch with where the American people are.”
Ahead of this year’s Super Bowl LX, the Washington Post‘s Adam Kilgore wrote that Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback-turned Black Lives Matter activist, was the “most relevant figure” to the game.
“You can see example after example,” Carr said. “So Super Bowl Sunday — people are gearing up for the big game, they’re all excited about it. The Washington Post came out with a story that says the most important person to the most recent Super Bowl was Colin Kaepernick, right? […] No actual human being in America would reach that conclusion.”
Carr also pointed to ABC News’s negative coverage of the men’s U.S. Olympic hockey team meeting with Trump after winning the gold, and to TIME‘s cover of Eileen Gu, the American-born skier who chose to compete for China, as examples of the media being “out-of-touch.”
2. The second reason why legacy media is not trusted is because they are “consistently being exposed for running hoaxes that go in one direction,” Carr argued, citing CNN’s infamous “mostly peaceful protests” coverage of the violent Kenosha, Wisconsin, Black Lives Matter riots of 2020.
He also recalled media reports of former President Joe Biden being “of sound mind” when he was mentally struggling, the hoax that smeared a Covington Catholic High School student as a racist, and “Russiagate.”
“I mean, the list of these hoaxes that the legacy media was running went on and on and on,” Carr said.
3. “And finally, I say, people have access to news and information from so many different sources. Now that that gatekeeping role is eroded, you can actually find out the truth about stories again.”
Carr also highlighted CNN’s controversial coverage of two accused ISIS-aligned terrorists who allegedly threw homemade bombs outside of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home, where the outlet wrote in a now-deleted social media post that the suspects could have had a “normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather.”
Takeaway
Carr said, "I woke up this morning, and CNN has this tweet up about how these two innocent kids were traveling to New York City on a warm summer day, and lo and behold, they found themselves caught with charges of terrorism for dropping, effectively, IEDs at a protest,” the chairman said. “And CNN left that tweet up. They have now deleted it. The story itself is still up there — again, whether that falls in the hoax bucket, or the out of touch bucket, I don’t know, but it’s just time after time after time, and that’s why you see that trust in the legacy meeting just continuing to crater.”
On December 8, 1983, President Ronald Regan said, “If America is to offer greater economic opportunity to her citizens, if she's to defend our freedom, democracy, and keep the peace, then our children will need wisdom, courage, and strength -- virtues beyond their reach without education. In the words of Thomas Jefferson: 'If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be.'”
We've got to get to the truth in our country.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Bold. Be Courageous. Be Prayerful.