media columnist Margaret Sullivan questioned if presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump understood the role of the free press in America just hours after he revoked the press credentials for reporters covering his campaign.
Sullivan said Tuesday that she had contacted Trump's campaign and wanted to ask the candidate to expand on his definition of the ban against the and how he would define the role of America's free press. She said she had not received comment as of her deadline.
"Does it matter that Donald Trump has banned us? Not in the way you’d think." via
Trump's campaign took issue with an article that appeared on the 's website on Monday with the headline, "Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shooting." The headline was changed to "Donald Trump seems to connect President Obama to Orlando shooting" within an hour after it was published.
Trump wrote on his page Tuesday, "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 ."
I am no fan of President Obama, but to show you how dishonest the phony Washington Post is:
Later in the day, at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump joked about revoking the 's press credentials.
Trump: "We just took the press credentials away. I love it! We just took the press credentials away from the dishonest ."
After losing her credentials revoked by the Trump campaign, the 's national political correspondent, Karen Tumulty, tweeted: "Trump has revoked the 's press credentials. If elected, he will build a wall around 13th and K Streets [the D.C. location of the Post].
Trump has revoked the Washington Post%27s press credentials. If elected, he will build a wall around 13th and K Streets.
White House reporters and several media entities condemned the move.
The White House Correspondents' Association criticized Trump for "arbitrarily" banning news outlets.
"Any nominee for the highest office in the country must respect the role of a free and adversarial press, not disown the principles of the First Amendment just because he or she does not like the tone or content of their coverage," president Carol Lee said in a statement Tuesday.
Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of The Associated Press, said: "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 U.S. 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.
"Donald Trump's decision to revoke 's press credentials is nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press," the newspaper's editor, Marty Baron, said in a statement.
Donald Trump today revoked press credentials for . My statement here.
"When coverage doesn't correspond to what the candidate wants it to be, then a news organization is banished. will continue to cover Donald Trump as it has all along -- honorably, honestly, accurately, energetically, and unflinchingly. We're proud of our coverage, and we're going to keep at it," Baron said.
On Tuesday, CNN reporter Brian Stelter interviewed Trump regarding the 's ban and he said Trump said that if elected, he wouldn't try to revoke anyone's White House press credentials.
Donald Trump: If I%27m elected, I won%27t kick reporters out of White House press briefing room
The 's Sullivan commented that Trump's revocation put the D.C. newspaper among other media that had its press credentials revoked, including and the . Some of those bans were later reversed, but it was unclear if the 's would be.
The later Tuesday published an op-ed piece called "." It's No. 1 lesson: Donald Trump is never wrong.
The , based in the U.S. capital, is one the country's the most influential newspapers and has one of the largest circulations.
Meanwhile, although Trump has regularly complained the media has treated him unfairly, a study released Tuesday by Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy said the billionaire businessman has disproportionately benefited from news coverage of his campaign.
The study -- -- found Trump received 34 percent of the media's coverage of the Republican primaries, far more than any of his Republican rivals. Jeb Bush came in second with 18 percent.
Trump's media coverage was worth about $55 million dollars, compared to $19 million for Bush.