On Tuesday evening, Sahan Journal reporter Katelyn Vue showed up to the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel in Bloomington to do her job: covering the Minnesota Republican Party’s election night watch party.
Rather than interviewing politicians and attendees, Vue was escorted out of the building by security guards. A party organizer told her that Vue and other unspecified journalists were not welcome, Vue reported on Tuesday evening. She was denied entry even though she had received advance confirmation that her name was on the attendance list.
Vue wrote that when she inquired about why she was barred from the event, the organizer pointed to an article that quoted a professor as calling a Republican ad “racist.” Vue reported that the Minnesota Reformer also was not allowed to enter the event, but the Reformer was not told why.
The exclusion of two Minnesota news outlets is the latest in a series of incidents in which officials have punished media outlets by denying them access to events and places where other media are permitted. These actions should concern anyone who cares about a free press.
Perhaps the highest profile of such bans occurred in September, when the Trump administration banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House. Federal Judge Timothy Kelly ruled that the ban was likely unconstitutional and ordered the White House to readmit the journalists.
The Minnesota Republican Party’s ban is not susceptible to a similar First Amendment challenge because the election watch party is a private event. The First Amendment does not require the party to allow access to all — or any — journalists. Legally, the Republican Party is generally free to admit only the journalists that it believes would provide favorable coverage.
But that doesn’t mean that the Republican Party should do that. Such actions deprive Minnesotans of a diversity of news sources about vital events such as elections. A free press is crucial to the public’s understanding of the issues of the day. When major political parties begin punishing disfavored news outlets with coverage shut-outs, they create a chilling effect that discourages rigorous journalism.
One might question how the public benefits from media access to a campaign event. But the answer is simple: the media are covering the people who want to govern our cities, state and nation. Campaign events are where politicians and their supporters lay out their vision for the future and give a glimpse of what they might do if they were in power.
The Minnesota Republican Party’s election watch night was not the only event on Tuesday in which organizers excluded certain media outlets. The campaign of New York Congressman Mike Lawler prohibited Bloomberg reporters from attending his election night event, due to the news outlet’s reporting on an employment lawsuit that political canvassers had filed against the campaign.
And California state Sen. Scott Wiener’s campaign had initially barred a Mission Local reporter from its election night event, citing its critical coverage of Wiener’s congressional race. (After the San Francisco Standard reported the exclusion, the campaign allowed Mission Local to attend the event.)
And in August, Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong declined Fox News’s request to attend her primary election watch party, citing capacity limits, though later permitted a correspondent to enter without equipment.
In other recent elections, campaigns have similarly prevented certain news outlets from attending events. In 2022, the Iowa Republican Party blocked a Cedar Rapids television station from attending an election night rally, citing capacity limits. But the station, KCRG, noted that other media received access. “I cannot recall a single instance a political party has blocked a local TV or newspaper outlet from its election night event in Iowa,” Adam Carros, the station’s news director, said at the time.
Also in 2022, a Michigan Advance reporter was denied entry to Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon’s election night party, even though the reporter had obtained media credentials. “Reporters are the watchdog for the people,” Lisa McGraw of the Michigan Press Association told the Advance. “Shutting them out of any part of the political process is a trend I’d like to see stopped immediately.”
Unfortunately, such access denials are increasingly common. “Journalists have historically been granted access to campaign events; however, since 2016, there have been increased reports of journalists barred — or removed — from such events,” writes the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
As the Reporters Committee correctly notes, because campaign events are private events, “campaigns maintain control over which members of the public may (or may not) access these events, including journalists.” Accordingly, for the media — and the public — to have full access to these important and, in some cases, historic, events, we must build a culture of transparency and an expectation that political campaigns and parties will open their events to all who want to cover them.
