The Trump White House is disrupting the way the press room functions amid its legal feud with The Associated Press.
The Trump administration wants control over choosing the pool of rotating journalists to cover the executive branch, a responsibility maintained by the White House Correspondents Association for decades.
“Moving forward, the White House Press Pool will be determined by the White House Press Team,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Tuesday.
“Legacy outlets who have participated in the press pool for decades will still be allowed to join,” she added. “But we will also be offering the privilege to well-deserving outlets, who have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility.”
“A select group of D.C.-based journalists should no longer have a monopoly over the privilege of press access at the White House,” Leavitt added.
WHCA pushes back on Trump White House’s decision to change press standards
Eugene Daniels, the WHCA president and a writer for Politico, released a statement saying this move threatens “the independence of a free press.”
“In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps,” Daniels said. He added that over the years, the association’s membership has expanded to include “new and emerging outlets.”
The WHCA has been in charge of selecting a group of reporters, anchors, producers and photographers since its founding in 1914 — all to fulfill its mission of giving readers, viewers and listeners a wide range of sources while maintaining professional and ethical standards.
“To be clear, the White House did not give the WHCA board a heads up or have any discussions about today’s announcements,” Daniels added.
The New York Times' chief White House correspondent Peter Baker shared a grim view in a post on X.
“Having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin’s reign, this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access,” Baker wrote. “Every president of both parties going back generations subscribed to the principle that a president doesn’t pick the press corps that is allowed in the room to ask him questions. Trump has just declared that he will.”
The clash between AP and White House
The White House’s latest move comes after the legal back-and-forth with a newswire website.
The Associated Press decided to keep using “Gulf of Mexico” instead of “Gulf of America,” in its style guide, despite Trump’s move to sign a proclamation changing the body of water’s name on his first day in office. So the White House restricted the outlet from covering President Donald Trump at his press conferences in the Oval Office and aboard Air Force One, as well as at other events, according to CNN.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden didn’t remove the ban nor did he fulfill the AP’s request for a restraining order against members of the Trump administration. The judge said he found it odd that the WHCA decided the press pool for the executive branch, and therefore, plays the referee between the White House and journalists.
The judge didn’t make a final ruling and set the next hearing for March 20, as the Deseret News reported.