The intricacies of press credentials, at the White House and beyond

By Harmeet Kaur, CNN

(CNN) — What makes a journalist a journalist? In the United States, by foundational principle, anyone who wants to report and publish the news can do it without official permission.

On the White House beat, however, a reporter needs to show an ID badge, linked to a security code, for consistent, streamlined access to the grounds. Saturday morning, as CNN reporter Betsy Klein tried to enter the White House through the usual security checkpoint at the Northwest Gate, the system told her there was an error. A Secret Service member asked to see her badge and confiscated it, returning only the lanyard and clear plastic case.

Her press credentials, she was told, were deactivated.

The day before, President Donald Trump had announced that he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. His way of making that happen, it turned out, was by shutting off their credentials.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico are suing the Trump administration, alleging that the ban on their journalists violates the First Amendment and the Constitution’s due process protections. The position of being a credentialed journalist is not something that can be summarily and unilaterally revoked, according to binding legal precedent.

Early Thursday morning, a federal judge ordered that the Trump administration temporarily reinstate the reporters’ White House access while each side continues to make its case. CNN, MS NOW and Politico were eventually allowed back in after being denied earlier in the day.

A journalistic credential, in the US, does not inherently make a person a journalist. Where doctors or lawyers need to be properly educated and authorized by overseeing bodies, journalists operate with no formally required qualifications.

But journalists do need to go places and see things, including getting access to spaces and events that aren’t open to the general public. So governments, law enforcement agencies and private entities have systems to provide credentials to identify people who are gathering the news.

This means the independent press and the authorities coming to an agreement about who is engaged in newsgathering. Who gives out a press pass? Who gets one? And on what grounds can they be denied or revoked?

These questions can produce fundamental conflicts around reporting. “The same public offices responsible for managing public perception are also empowered to decide which journalists are granted access, often without external review or oversight,” Nicole Ligon, an assistant professor of law at Campbell University, wrote in a law review article on press credentialing published earlier this year.

“Credential,” derived from the Latin root “credere” meaning to believe, was first recorded in 1433 as part of the term “letter credential,” a document that served as a diplomatic recommendation or introduction. By the 19th century, it had also evolved into a verb to describe the act of providing proof of one’s identity or qualifications.

At the White House, that proof comes in the form of plastic ID badges also known as “hard passes.” Beginning in the early 20th century, the White House Press Office has administered these credentials to journalists who regularly cover the White House, allowing them ready and regular access to the grounds. Criteria for obtaining credentials have varied over the years. President Joe Biden’s administration tightened the rules around hard passes in 2023, and media reporter Justin Baragona wrote at the time that the move would likely curb access for fringe journalists.

The White House passes occupy an upper tier in a hierarchy of access to official Washington, DC. Journalists applying for one have to undergo a background check, provide a residential or professional address in the Washington, DC, area and demonstrate that they regularly cover the White House; a 2023 DC district court ruling indicated that they must also be accredited by the Supreme Court or the congressional press galleries.

Those congressional passes are issued through the Senate Press Galleries by committees of working journalists and provide reporters who cover the House and Senate unaccompanied access to the US Capitol complex. Applicants from daily news organizations and wire services must establish that they are full-time paid employees who require regular access to the Capitol grounds; those from magazines or other non-daily publications must submit a letter on their organization’s letterhead — a credential about credentialing — signed by a bureau chief or managing editor, indicating full-time employment and explaining what they need to cover.

Other governments and agencies have their own processes, with their own proofs of journalistic status. The New York City Mayor’s Office issues press cards that allow local journalists to cross police barriers or other city-imposed restrictions during emergency and breaking news events. To apply for the city’s standard press card, applicants must submit at least six examples of work involving in-person coverage, published in the last two years. In the city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Police Department is responsible for issuing media credentials to cover news behind police and fire lines.

For decades, governments have generally granted journalists access to official events and spaces, regardless of the tenor of their coverage. But during his first and second terms in office, Trump has attempted to shut out certain reporters and news organizations.

In 2025, after Associated Press said it would continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico and not Trump’s moniker Gulf of America, administration officials made changes to the daily pool rotation that prevented some AP reporters from accessing presidential events in the Oval Office and Air Force One. The AP sued over the move, and a lower court ruled that the outlet had shown the administration had improperly retaliated against it. Litigation is ongoing. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has also repeatedly attempted to restrict journalists’ access to the Pentagon based on their reporting — in March, a judge deemed the policy unlawful.

During Trump’s first term, the White House revoked the credentials of Jim Acosta, then CNN’s chief White House correspondent. CNN sued, and a federal judge ordered the administration to restore his press pass.

“When the people who are deciding who get press credentials are the very people that the journalists are reporting on, that seems to me a real conflict,” Ligon said.

How might journalistic access be protected against political influence or interference? Press credentials often function like professional licenses — revoking one, Ligon argued in the article, can interfere with a journalist’s ability to do their job. Doctors, lawyers and taxi cab drivers facing the revocation of their licenses are entitled to due process. Journalists, she said, should be too.

In addition to licensing boards and oversight bodies, Ligon points to the model of congressional press galleries as another possible safeguard. As with the Senate Press Galleries, journalists covering Canada’s parliament are credentialed independently from parliamentary leadership or the prime minister’s office, by a group of working journalists.

The definition of who counts as a journalist is always evolving. In recent years, mass layoffs at established news organizations have led to more independent journalists and freelancers, while technological shifts have blurred the lines between journalists and bloggers and content creators.

In previous eras, working for an established news organization might have improved a journalist’s odds of obtaining a press credential. A 2015 survey by researchers at Harvard University found that 14% of employees at media organizations had been denied credentials at least once, while 32% of freelancers and 27% of independent journalists had been denied. But in recent years, governments and political institutions have broadened the scope of who merits a credential. During the 2024 Democratic National Convention, the DNC issued credentials to more than 200 digital content creators.

And as the Trump administration has attempted to shut out mainstream news organizations from the White House briefing room, it has welcomed nontraditional and MAGA-friendly organizations. During the first White House briefing of Trump’s second term, then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt encouraged podcasters and social media influencers to apply for credentials.

“The Trump White House will speak to all media outlets and personalities, not just the legacy media who are seated in this room,” she said, to the media seated in the room.

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