On Feb. 25, the White House broke decades of precedent by announcing that the administration will now select which news outlets can cover events with President Donald Trump. This changes who is allowed into the Oval Office, Air Force One and some other meetings and conferences, according to Politico.
This decision followed the Feb. 14 White House banning of The Associated Press from the press pool for not changing its editorial standards to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America — the recognized name of the gulf by the United States government — according to CNN.
The White House Correspondents’ Association has traditionally decided which White House correspondents from various news outlets are in the press pool, according to the WHCA. Now, this decision is up to the White House on a day-to-day basis, according to CNN.
WHCA member and New York Times Chief White House Correspondent Peter Baker has covered five presidents. He said the actions of the White House contrast with what he has seen in the past.
“They’re deciding who represents us, and that’s a form of government control that we’ve never seen before at the White House,” Baker told the Daily Lobo. “And the consequence of that is just who’s asking questions of the president.”
Mike Marcotte, a retired UNM journalism professor, said the change in control of the press pool will impact what questions are being asked during White House coverage.
“Do you want somebody who’s tossing soft balls to them so they can hit a home run?” Marcotte said. “Or do you want what the White House coverage team has assembled: the free press — professional, well-trained, well-informed, no axe to grind — who are there to ask challenging questions?”
Journalists exist to hold people accountable and demand honest answers to questions, Marcotte said.
“We can talk about the First Amendment and free speech opportunities and how the press fits into that,” Marcotte said. “But what we really have to put the spotlight on is that we have a powerful leader that’s trying to diminish the press.”
On Feb. 21, AP sued the White House over its access to presidential events, citing freedom of speech. A judge did not immediately order the White House to restore AP’s access, according to AP.
The White House’s press pool actions are not unconstitutional and do not violate the First Amendment, according to Jessica Feezell, a UNM associate professor of political science.
“There’s nothing in the Constitution about press access to the presidency,” Feezell said. “Only protections for free press to write and say whatever they want to, short of libel and slander.”
While not illegal, the move does mark potential changes for the way the independent press acts and operates, according to Baker.
“Even though at the moment they haven’t kicked out all the traditional media from the pool, by kicking out the AP and taking control, the message they have sent to everybody else is ‘Stay in line. If you write something or say something or report something we don’t like, we will kick you out,’” Baker said.
Soon after the White House’s announcement, Baker wrote an article titled “In Trump’s Washington, a Moscow-Like Chill Takes Hold,” drawing comparisons between it and the early days of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule over Moscow.
In a post on X, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to a post by Baker that made the same comparison, writing, “Your hysterical reaction to our long overdue and much needed change to an outdated organization is precisely why we made it.”
The WHCA is not outdated and is an organization of new media, Baker told the Daily Lobo.
“This is a fallacy on the part of the White House. It’s nonsense. The White House Correspondence Association (has) always expanded its membership and its participation in the pool,” Baker said.
The WHCA has liberal, conservative and traditional media that tries to stay neutral, according to Baker. If changes needed to be made to press pool access, there could have been a conversation between the WHCA and the administration, he said.
The WHCA was not made aware of the White House’s change in advance, according to a Feb. 25 statement by WHCA President Eugene Daniels.
The WHCA includes conservative media outlets, including Fox News. WHCA board member and Fox News Senior White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich criticized the press pool control shift in a Feb. 25 post to X.
“This move does not give the power back to the people – it gives power to the White House. The WHCA is democratically elected by the full-time White House press corps,” Heinrich wrote in the post. “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 adversarial relationship between the press and people in power is healthy if it’s done right, Baker said. This is because journalism is meant to be a system that involves accountability and scrutiny, he said.
“If we get to a point where that’s no longer inherent, this system, then it’s a detriment to democracy,” Baker said. “Voters have to have the right to be informed, and one way that they’re informed is through independent media.”
Elizabeth Secor is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on X @esecor2003
