The White House Correspondents Association will no longer be responsible for determining which outlets get privileged access to the briefing room and the White House, President Donald Trump’s administration announced Tuesday.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says the White House press team will now determine the rotations and which outlets get access, upending decades of WHCA supremacy. Leavitt clarified that legacy media outlets that have been prominent within the WHCA will still have a presence at briefings, and that the five major television networks will still be relied on to broadcast White House events.
‘I am proud to announce that we are going to give the power back to the people who read your papers, who watch your television shows, and who listen to your radio stations. Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team. Legacy outlets who have participated in the press pool for decades will still be allowed to join, fear not. But we will also be offering the privilege to well-deserving outlets who have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility,’ Leavitt told reporters during Tuesday’s briefing.
The announcement comes just days after the Associated Press sued the Trump White House for denying the outlet access to the briefing room, Air Force One and other exclusive areas. A federal judge ruled in favor of the White House on Monday.
Leavitt argued the WHCA had represented an entrenched monopoly of ‘DC journalists’ who no longer represented the wider media landscape and how Americans get their news.
‘A select group of D.C.-based journalists should no longer have a monopoly over the privilege of press access at the White House. All journalists, outlets and voices deserve a seat at this highly coveted table,’ she said.
The Trump White House had earlier introduced a ‘new media seat’ in the briefing room to provide access to more diverse outlets. The digital outlet Semafor was represented at Tuesday’s briefing.
The White House originally blocked The Associated Press last week from the Oval Office and Air Force One because the news organization has refrained from renaming the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ to the ‘Gulf of America.’
‘The Associated Press continues to ignore the lawful geographic name change of the Gulf of America. This decision is not just divisive, but it also exposes the Associated Press’ commitment to misinformation. While their right to irresponsible and dishonest reporting is protected by the First Amendment, it does not ensure their privilege of unfettered access to limited spaces, like the Oval Office and Air Force One,’ White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich wrote on X.
‘Going forward, that space will now be opened up to the many thousands of reporters who have been barred from covering these intimate areas of the administration,’ Budowich continued. ‘Associate Press journalists and photographers will retain their credentials to the White House complex.’
AP senior vice president and executive editor Julie Pace wrote to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles last week after a reporter was blocked from attending a White House event.
‘The actions taken by this White House were plainly intended to punish the AP for the content of its speech,’ Pace wrote, according to an AP report. ‘It is among the most basic tenets of the First Amendment that the government cannot retaliate against the public or the press for what they say.’