Republican withdraws credentials saying Post was responsible for ‘incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record-setting Trump campaign’

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has revoked credentials provided to the Washington Post after the presumptive nominee deemed their coverage of the election race “inaccurate”.

Trump wrote on his Facebook page: “Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record setting Trump campaign, we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post.”

He wrote that he’s “no fan of” President Barack Obama, but faulted the Post for a headline posted Monday that he said read, “Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shooting.”

The headline on the story on Monday afternoon read: “Donald Trump seems to connect President Obama to Orlando shooting.”

Trump said in an interview on Fox News Channel on Monday morning that when it comes to fighting terrorism, the president “doesn’t get it or, or he gets it better than anybody understands”.

Post spokeswoman Kristine Coratti Kelly said in an email the headline was changed shortly after the story posted “to more properly reflect what Trump said”. She added, “We did so on our own; the Trump campaign never contacted us about it.”

A Post photographer and reporter attended Trump’s speech in New Hampshire Monday afternoon without issue.

In a statement, Post editor Martin Baron said Trump’s decision to revoke the paper’s press credentials “is nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press”.

“When coverage doesn’t correspond to what the candidate wants it to be, then a news organisation is banished. The Post will continue to cover Donald Trump as it has all along – honourably, honestly, accurately, energetically, and unflinchingly. We’re proud of our coverage, and we’re going to keep at it,” he said.

Journalists from across the industry reacted to the ban on Twitter, some suggesting that being banned by Trump was a badge of honour.

Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) Here’s the good news @washingtonpost: the best Trump stories don’t require any access at all.

Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) Welcome! @WashingtonPost joins @buzzfeednews, @politico, @HuffingtonPost among news orgs banned by Trump from events https://t.co/3X7EsPGq4T

Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) Welcome to the club, @washingtonpost https://t.co/gMv2AE4UND

Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the Associated Press, said on Monday night: “This is a race for the most powerful position on the planet. The public is interested in what the candidates do and say and having independent coverage is part of what keeps the public informed.

“The founders who crafted the US constitution may very well have disliked some of the stories written about them, but they enshrined the right to a free press in the first amendment anyway,” Carroll said.

Trump’s campaign has revoked credentials from other news outlets including the Daily Beast, the Huffington Post, Politico and the Des Moines Register.

His campaign reiterated its decision in a statement on Monday evening.

“We no longer feel compelled to work with a publication which has put its need for ‘clicks’ above journalistic integrity,” it read.