Kai Godsey / The Mossy Log
Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced changes to the White House press pool that might seem minor — unless you are paying attention. Reporters from the three leading wire services — The Associated Press, Reuters and Bloomberg — will no longer rotate through a guaranteed spot in the pool, the small group of journalists granted access to high-security, limited-space events like executive order signings or travel aboard Air Force One.
Instead, these three organizations, known for nonpartisan, fact-based reporting, will be lumped into a broader group of journalists who must compete for just two available slots. In short, the outlets that have long formed the backbone of reliable, daily national reporting will now face more hurdles to go about their jobs.
This is not just another bureaucratic internal policy tweak. It is a calculated response to a lawsuit brought by the AP after being denied access to a White House event. A federal judge — Trump appointee Trevor McFadden — ruled that the administration could not ban journalists based on viewpoint under the First Amendment. So instead of continuing to push that legal boundary, the administration simply rewrote the rules to marginalize key outlets without directly violating the court’s ruling.
Last week, the Associated Press accused the White House of refusing to include them in the press pool, effectively violating the federal court ruling. This move is strategic, and it is dangerous.
Authoritarian regimes rarely start by jailing journalists. They begin by chipping away at public trust in the press, then rewriting the access rules until coverage becomes fragmented, politicized and easier to manipulate. What the Trump administration has done this month is a textbook example: limiting access for the institutions most trusted to provide nonpartisan information, and dressing it up as procedural housekeeping.
But this kind of erosion is not new. Journalism in America was already in a precarious position long before Trump entered politics. Decades of disinvestment, the decline of print and the rise of social media algorithms that reward sensationalism have left the industry under-resourced and vulnerable. Between 2005 and 2024, more than 3,000 local newspapers shut down. Thousands more operate on skeleton staffs, unable to cover city hall, school board meetings or basic public safety. In far too many communities — especially those in rural areas — there is no longer a local newspaper at all.
That vacuum has been filled by partisan blogs, misinformation networks and social media posts that prioritize virality over truth. The further national journalism is weakened, the more those gaps widen. And when the federal government takes steps to limit access to the few institutions left that are equipped to report reliably and without spin, it does not just hurt elite media — it harms everyone, especially in communities where local news has vanished and trusted information is already hard to come by.
The consequences of this shift are not abstract — they ripple outward, shaping how citizens understand their communities, their leaders and their place in the world. When national institutions are undermined and local outlets disappear, it becomes harder to separate fact from narrative, harder to hold power accountable and harder to stay informed at all. The weakening of one part of the press — whether it is a national media outlet shut out of the White House or a hometown paper unable to keep up with costs — ultimately destabilizes the entire ecosystem. And that instability reaches even the smallest newsrooms.
I write this as a student journalist at our small liberal arts college in Portland, OR — a far cry from the White House briefing room. Our paper, The Mossy Log, does not have a political correspondent or a travel budget. We are not breaking national stories or filing federal lawsuits. But we do care about journalism, and we do see what is happening. We feel its implications even here, in our small corner of the media ecosystem.
Last week, I was elected editor-in-chief of The Mossy Log, where I have worked for the past two years — first as a section editor, now as managing editor. I did not join the editorial board thinking I would be writing opinion pieces about despotic restrictions on press freedom or the fate of democracy. I thought I would be mentoring writers, updating our style guide and maybe making the layout a little easier on the eyes. But it has become clear that even in college newsrooms, we are living through a moment that demands more. When foundational norms like access, transparency and fairness are being actively rewritten, it becomes all of our responsibility — even at small student papers — to pay attention and speak up.
We are not immune to the broader decline of journalism just because we are small. If anything, our size makes us more vulnerable. Public trust in the press is eroding, and misinformation moves faster than corrections do. In that climate, doing journalism — any journalism — is an act of resistance. And it is one that we take seriously.
We do not pretend to be on the frontlines of national reporting. But we do understand the value of accurate, principled coverage, especially at the vital but unprofitable local level. We know that journalism is a public good, not a partisan weapon. And we believe that access to truth should not depend on which reporters are allowed in the room.
The Trump administration’s decision to limit that access — especially for the outlets best positioned to report the facts without spin — should alarm everyone, regardless of political affiliation. This is not about ideology. It is about control.
We need to stop treating the collapse of press freedom as an abstraction. It is not a distant or elite issue — it is happening now, in real time, and its effects are already being felt across the country. If we want to preserve journalism as a democratic exercise, we need to protect it in all its forms: national, local and student-run. That means paying attention to how power interacts with the press — and refusing to stay silent when access becomes weaponized.
We may be a small newspaper, but we are part of a much larger story. And we are not going to look away.
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