The White House announced on Tuesday (April 15th) that it would impose stricter controls on the composition of the press pool, with newswire agencies including Reuters and Bloomberg no longer having the permanent privilege to ask President Trump and report his statements in real-time.
The press pool typically consists of about 10 news organizations, authorized to track the President’s activities, whether he’s making statements in the Oval Office, answering questions, or traveling domestically and internationally.
For many years, the Associated Press, Bloomberg, and Reuters have been standard members of the press pool.
Under the new policy, major newswire agencies will lose their accustomed special positions, replaced by a rotation system with around 30 newspapers and print media for interview coverage.
As newswire agencies are tasked with providing real-time information to other news organizations and readers, they often need to closely report on the President and the White House daily. A Reuters spokesperson stated, “Reuters news reports reach billions of people every day,” emphasizing that any restrictions on presidential access could hinder the public and global media from obtaining independent, fair, and accurate government news.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, after denying the Associated Press the permanent interview rights, indicated that her team would determine “who can have very superior and limited access permissions in places like Air Force One and the Oval Office.” Previously, these decisions were made by the White House Correspondents’ Association, consisting of reporters covering the White House and the President.
Last week, a federal judge in Washington ordered the government to allow Associated Press journalists to participate in events open to similar news organizations in the Oval Office and Air Force One and have greater access within the White House.
The White House is appealing the ruling.
Trump has continually accused several mainstream media outlets of spreading fake news. During a speech on November 3 last year, he noticed gaps in the bulletproof glass around him and cryptically remarked, “To hit me, you would have to go through fake news.” Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign team, later explained that Trump was concerned about media safety. Trump also spent a significant amount of time in that speech criticizing the news media and at one point pointed at the TV camera, saying, “ABC, fake news. CBS, ABC, NBC, in my opinion, these are all seriously corrupt media.”
On March 23, President Trump posted on social media, criticizing the “failing New York Times” for persistently employing “a very bad writer… to write many long and boring hit pieces against me.” Trump wrote, “They did everything in their power to help manipulate the election against me, how did that turn out??? Make America Great Again!!!”