On: Donald Trump bans three media outlets from the White House, accusing them of...

“Fake news.” Two words, and three newsrooms stand outside the door.

CNN. MS NOW. Politico. Banned Friday from the building where the president speaks, accused of fabrication. Now lay the charges side by side and read them in order. One wire service, for what it refused to call a body of water. Another, for coverage the president called unfair. These three, for “fake news.” The accusation changes with every case; the sentence never does. When the charge varies and the outcome holds, the charge was never the reason. The reason is the reporting. Say it plainly: he does not fear lies; he fears witnesses.

Note what the ban does not do. It does not stop a word. CNN will broadcast from a sidewalk; Politico will publish from an office down the street. What the ban stops is proximity - the question asked in the room, the follow-up, the face the president must make while answering. And it instructs the correspondents still seated: this is what a chair costs. The punishment of three is a lesson for the remainder.

I think of the record more than the door. I have seen a printing office wrecked and the wreckers praised as leading citizens; the wreck was never the whole design - the silence afterward was. When only the approved may witness the briefing, the approved write the first draft, and an account of power written by power’s guests is itself an exhibit.

The advocates promise lawsuits. Good. But a court can restore a pass; it cannot restore the habit of asking. So count who remains in the room. That count, kept faithfully, is the true attendance record of this administration - and every name absent from it must be written down elsewhere, dated, and kept.