White House Says It Will Now Determine Who Will Participate In Press Pool
UPDATED: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the White House would now determine which outlets will be members of the press pool, the smaller group of journalists who are allowed in to events in the Oval Office or travel with the president on Air Force One.
For decades, the White House Correspondents’ Association has handled the logistics of the press pool, including determining which outlets will be assigned for duty and when they will participate. The set up designed to prevent an administration from retaliating against journalists whose coverage they disfavor.
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At the briefing, Leavitt said that the change would open up the pool to a greater number of news outlets.
“Legacy outlets who have participated in the press pool for decades will still be allowed to join, but we will also be offering the privilege to well-deserving outlets who have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility,” she said.
She said that they will continue the rotation among the five major television networks “to ensure the president’s remarks are heard far and wide around this world.”
Speaking to reporters later today, Trump said, “We’re going to be calling those shots.”
But Eugene Daniels, the president of the WHCA, said that the move “tears at the independence of a free press in the United States. It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president. In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.”
Other members of the press corps also criticized the move. Jacqui Heinrich, senior White House correspondent for Fox News, challenged Leavitt’s claim that the change gives “power back to the people.”
“This move does not give the power back to the people – it gives power to the White House,” Heinrich wrote on X. “The WHCA is democratically elected by the full-time White House press corps. WHCA has determined pools for decades because only representatives FROM our outlets can determine resources all those outlets have – such as staffing – in order to get the President’s message out to the largest possible audience, no matter the day or hour.”
An ongoing White House press pool has existed for more than a century, as a way of ensuring that there was a media presence at major events, even in places like the Oval Office where space is limited. Hundreds of reporters are credentialed to get access to the White House, but the pool typically is made up of a dozen or so print, radio and TV reporters and photographers, often including major networks and publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post.
The Associated Press sued Leavitt and other White House officials last week after it was prohibited from participating in the pool, as well as other White House and presidential events. The White House was clear that the restriction was because the AP failed to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Trump signed an executive order changing the name, but it has not been recognized by other countries, given that it encompasses international waters.
A judge on Monday declined to immediate restore the AP’s access, and set an expedited schedule in the case. The judge, Trevor McFadden, did find the White House’s action “problematic,” given the stated reason was over AP’s content, a type of viewpoint discrimination barred by the First Amendment. The judge noted that by having the WHCA determine who was in the pool, the White House had “accepted the WHCA’s ability to be a referee here,” something that may weigh on his ultimate decision in the case.
The WHCA is a non profit organization, made up of White House correspondents, and it manages the pool rotations and seating in the briefing room.
In his statement, Daniels said that the WHCA had long reflected changes in the business.
“For generations, the working journalists elected to lead the White House Correspondents’ Association board have consistently expanded the WHCA’s membership and its pool rotations to facilitate the inclusion of new and emerging outlets,” he said.
He also said that the White House did not give the WHCA board “a heads up or have any discussions about today’s announcements.”
After Trump’s election, there was concern over how he would handle the issue of press access. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 even suggested the possibility of moving the press corps out of the White House, or even its grounds. As Trump prepared to take office in his first term, his team considered moving the press corps out of the West Wing, but the idea was quickly aborted.
The concerns over access abated by the time that Trump took office in January, as the WHCA had established a continuity of the press pool. In fact, reporters quickly took note of the level of engagement that Trump had with them from the start, as he answered questions in the Oval Office on his first day as he signed a series of executive orders.
Yet even as Trump has had a greater presence before the press than his predecessor, his administration has not stopped posturing, or in some cases penalizing, the mainstream media. The restrictions on the AP followed earlier moves to kick out outlets like NBC News, CNN and The New York Times from regular workspace at the Pentagon, in favor of a lineup of conservative or right wing outlets that will take their place as part of a new rotation program.
Chuck Todd, a former White House correspondent and moderator of Meet the Press, raised another issue in a post on X: When it comes to presidential travel, members of the press have to pay their own way, even when flying on Air Force One.
“Will be interesting to see if new media outlets will pay the high price of traveling with the president,” Todd wrote on X. “Or if the WH is going to subsidize and pay for the travel expenses of their handpicked press pool — aka, employees of the WH Comms shop?”
“What many folks don’t realize is that if it wasn’t for the Big 7 media orgs (AP, Bloomberg, NBC, CNN, CBS, ABC and Fox), the cost of covering the president would be even higher; These media orgs subsidize the cost of smaller media outlets to cover POTUS overseas.”
A number of free press organizations condemned the move. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said, “Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said one reason for the change was to give new media outlets an opportunity to cover the president. Chief of Staff Susie Wiles cited capacity issues in relatively small spaces like Air Force One or the Oval Office. But the decision’s timing and the White House’s punishment of the AP suggests it is seeking to exclude more outlets whose coverage or editorial standards it dislikes.”
“Any serious news organization would balk at participating in a press pool that’s handpicked by the President on the basis of his assessment of their editorial decisions,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “We worry that the long term result of this terrible policy will be a press pool comprised of toadies and hacks. Unfortunately that seems to be exactly what the White House is after.”
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