President Joe Biden's honeymoon with the press may be officially over about two months into his term.

The Society of Professional Journalists Tuesday (March 23) called on the Department of Homeland Security to stop blocking media access to border facilities, condemning the action as a failure for the new President.

Also Read: SPJ Decries Race-Motivated Attacks

SPJ pointed out that Biden promised both more humane treatment of immigrants and more transparency. "His administration’s refusal to let journalists fully observe and assess the growing humanitarian crisis at the border involving unaccompanied migrant children shows he is failing on both promises," said SPJ National President Matthew Hall.

He said the President needs to let journalists do their job, including granting interviews with officials who can tell the public what is going on. 

While SPJ was no fan of Donald Trump, it pointed out that his Administration, as well as the two previous administrations, provided at least some access to border facilities.

Also Read: SPJ Says Trump Should End COVID-Related Speech Restrictions

SPJ said it will join with other journalism groups on a letter to Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking for access to the border facilities. The letter will make the point that the First Amendment is not suspended during emergencies, including a pandemic.

The Society of Professional Journalists has teamed with the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) to put a spotlight on threats, harrassment and violence toward Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), including journalists.

"We also denounce all threats against journalists, including the race-related harassment of AAPI journalists. No journalist should be harassed or threatened for doing their job, for any reason, especially because of their race or ethnicity," said SPJ.

Also Read: CPJ Tells Journalists to Be Careful Out There

SPJ also called on journalists to report on the issue, which includes harassment of AAJA members and is rooted, in part, they say in "untrue and racist assumptions" related to the coronavirus pandemic. Former President Trump, for one, frequently called COVID-19 the "China Virus." 

Also Read: SPJ Decries Race-Motivated Attacks

“Journalists need to listen, more than ever, to communities that are hurting and that are looking for both representation and assurances that their concerns are being reflected in news coverage,” SPJ National President Matthew T. Hall said. “Amplifying diverse voices is so important because journalists need to reflect their communities to best serve them, and because it can bring about positive change and have a lasting impact. We ask that news managers and directors prioritize this coverage now and in the future, and that they not only allow reporters to cover these stories but also encourage them to do so.”

Electronic and print news outlets have joined with Fix the Court to ask James Duff, director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and the executives running the 13 federal circuits to ensure there is live, unfettered public access to any court hearing and judges' ruling related to the election.

That stems from technical issues with the Texas court decision Monday (Nov. 2) rejecting a Trump campaign attempt to invalidate drive-in-dropbox ballots. The phone line set up to provide access to that hearing malfunctioned and dropped everyone, said the outlets in a letter to Duff Tuesday (Nov. 3), after which only some outlets were allowed to get back on, and even then the audio quality was so bad, compounded by the fact that the reporters' lines were not muted, that it made it "almost impossible to understand."

They offered some suggestions to avoid a repeat of those issues for the existing and expected legal challenges surrounding the election. "There are dozens of election lawsuits making their way through district and appeals courts at this very moment, and the American people have a keen interest in how these cases are being argued and how they are being decided," they told Duff.

1. Allow district courts to use YouTube channels, which most circuits have created for audio appeals during the pandemic.

2. Work with the local media outlets to create a pool feed of the arguments.

3. Tweet, send a press release, and or post on the court home page if there are delays and technical issues

Joining in the letter were the Radio Television Digital News Association, the National Press Photographers Association, the News Media Alliance, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the Society of Professional Journalists.

The D.C. chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, on reports the Trump administration is clamping down on government statements about the coronavirus, say those are just the latest in decades-long efforts by government agencies to control information flow.

It wants journalists to keep that history in mind when they report on this latest effort, which reportedly is the Trump Administration's tighter control on the public statements and appearances by government health officials and scientists on the status of the virus.

Related: NAB Show Postponed

"The D.C. Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) warns that such control over the communication of health officials and scientists to the journalists is dangerous and damaging to the public's understanding of the coronavirus situation, as well as most other issues."

The President has argued that media outlets are hyping the virus, and tanking the stock market, as a way to help Democrats undermine his Administration.

Related: Everything You Need to Know About COVID-19

SPJ said that while it understands the need to designate certain sources for official comment, "silencing" other "flows of expression" keeps people in the dark.

The Trump administration continues to ramp up its criticism of the mainstream media, arguing that it needs to bypass an “enemy of the people” that it has accused of being in league with Democrats to undercut the president’s policies and delegitimize his presidency.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s exclusion of a number of news outlets — including CNN and The New York Times, both of which have drawn particularly heavy fire from the tweeter-in-chief — from a post-press conference gaggle in his office drew heavy criticism, including from the Society of Professional Journalists, one of the many groups that have pushed the president for a meeting. Multichannel News Washington bureau chief John Eggerton spoke with Lynn Walsh, national president of SPJ, about what’s next and the consequences of the arguably unprecedented animosity, certainly the most overt in modern times, coming from the Oval Office.

MCN:Is there anything SPJ can do about the exclusion of those news outlets, file some formal complaint, perhaps?
Lynn Walsh: We sent them a letter before President Trump took office along with up to 70 other journalism organizations, requesting a meeting but also talking about how important access to the Administration is and to government employees in general.

MCN:Did the White House grant that meeting?
LW: We have not heard back from them. And we are planning on following up with them shortly.

MCN:How?
LW: We’re not exactly sure. Part of the issue is that there isn’t anything formal that we can really do to stop this from happening that we are aware of. If there is something we can do legally, it would be something that hasn’t been done before.

MCN:Like what?
LW: Talking to some attorneys, they have said you can potentially try to file some formal complaint. Again, I am not an attorney, but saying there is a threat to the First Amendment and are they violating the First Amendment. But it has never been done before. The question is would it be successful; are there any grounds? And on that there are a wide range of answers.

MCN:So, what is your next step. Will you be sending a letter to the White House?
LW: We are not planning on sending a formal letter. There are other organizations that I think might and we would sign onto that. We are planning on following up with the letter that we sent to them asking for the meeting and should know what that will be within the next week.

MCN:How concerned is SPJ about the president’s repeated “enemies of the people” characterization?
LW: It is something we have heard from the beginning. Trump during the campaign was saying this, and now he is continuing it as president.

Our issue is that the public should be concerned. If journalists, if news organizations, are not allowed access, how are they [the public] going to get the information, and are they OK with, if journalists aren’t allowed in or only hand-picked organizations are allowed in, that the news that they then receive is only coming through the filter that the administration wants them to see it through?

MCN:It seems to us the other side of that is the more you keep the media in the dark through official channels, the more they have to go to the leaks and unnamed sources the White House is now cracking down on, arguing those sources are unreliable?
LW: That is absolutely a concern. President Trump recently talked about not allowing journalists to use unnamed sources [at the conservative CPAC conference he said as much in throwing some red meat to a crowd that shared his disdain for the “mainstream” media]. As journalists, we do want to try not to use unnamed sources. But if you are not allowed access, we are then stuck with using the tidbits of information we may be getting. As you said, how correct is that information if you can’t verify it. If no one will answer a question or you are not allowed access to a document or you are not allowed access to ask a question.

It is important to point out that President Obama and other presidents would allow access to hand-selected reporters and news organizations. Granting one-on-one interviews, something President Trump has also done, is different than a press secretary not allowing specific news organizations access to a briefing meant for groups of journalists.