A First Amendment Right to Sit In Front?

The White House press corps declared war on the Trump administration on Inauguration Day, and the administration has responded, but only mildly. Most recently, by taking control over the seating of reporters in the White House briefing room. You might think that something so trivial would not engage the attention of the Left, but you would be wrong.

Semafor reports: “Journalists consider briefing room sit-in as Trump clashes with White House press corps.”

The Trump administration’s proposal to take over the seating arrangement within the White House press briefing room has rattled the journalists who cover the president and left them mulling how exactly to push back.

The White House plans to impose its own seating chart for reporters in the briefing room, seizing control of a prerogative long managed by the journalists in the room through the White House Correspondents’ Association….

Of course, the White House Correspondents’ Association does not own the briefing room. The White House does.

The WHCA’s current system reflects the 20th century media power structure: wire services and broadcast and cable television networks occupy the front row, major newspapers and radio get the second and third rows, and a more fluid collection of news organizations sits further back.

That system put Helen Thomas, a notorious anti-Semite and far leftist, in the front row for many years.

The White House proposal would upend the arrangement in a move White House officials reportedly believe will be a “fundamental restructuring of the briefing room, based on metrics more reflective of how media is consumed today.”

Which seems entirely appropriate. But the Democrats are unhappy:

On Sunday, key members of the WHCA, including the organization’s leadership and some White House bureau chiefs, met to discuss a range of potential responses should Trump communications officials decide to dictate where reporters in the room sit.

According to two people familiar with the discussions, among the proposals raised by members was a potential Civil Rights era-style “sit-in” protest, in which members would return to their old seats and refuse to leave them.

Ha Ha Ha Ha! Please do it! The concept of a “sit-in,” in a briefing room where no one does anything except sit, is delightful. These liberals apparently think they have a constitutional right to the chairs they have been occupying:

The WHCA has tried to push back against White House’s changes and raise awareness about the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back press access at the White House and the Pentagon.

Let’s pause there. The press has had about 1,000 times as much access to President Trump as it ever had to poor Joe Biden. The real issue is that the dinosaur, left-wing press no longer enjoys special privileges.

As Semafor first noted last week, the WHCA asked members to support the AP’s press access case by wearing a 1st Amendment pin when attending events at the White House and appearing on television, a move White House officials quickly mocked on X.

The claim is that the AP has a constitutional right to be preferred over other news outlets: i.e., Democrats over Republicans. To which one can only say, turn out the lights. The party’s over.