On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the Trump administration’s White House Press Team would now handpick the journalists who report the president’s daily activities to the public.
Since 1914, the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) has independently decided what members of the press are allowed in the presidential pool, but the Trump administration is breaking tradition.
Journalists selected by WHCA have largely consisted of reporters from “legacy” media, such as the New York Times, CNN, Reuters, The Associated Press, ABC News and Fox News. Leavitt said that the decision to move control of press access was made to “give power back to the people.” Leavitt says it wouldn’t restrict legacy media networks’ access to the White House; rather, it would simply allow for the White House to expand the types of media that cover the administration.
However, some experts have their doubts.
Critics say that having the Trump Administration controlling close media access could create a scenario where the president only allows coverage from organizations favorable to him.
“People should be very alarmed. There’s less information getting out there with less and less context every day… [Trump] can only choose friendly outlets if he wants,” said Christina Bellantoni, the director of the USC Annenberg Media Center. Bellantoni served in the White House press corps, covering the first Obama administration.
In a statement, the WHCA said that the decision made by the Trump administration was made without warning. They said that they will continue to fight for “comprehensive access and full transparency” from the White House to the people.
“This 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,” said Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. “In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.”
The decision is one of many actions made by the Trump administration in recent weeks to restructure media access to the White House and a crackdown on legacy media outlets as a whole.
On February 18, the Trump administration banned the Associated Press, a longtime staple of media coverage at the White House, from press access due to their refusal to refer to what has long been known as the “Gulf of Mexico” to Trump’s new name for the geographic landmark — the Gulf of America.
Trump’s newly appointed FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, also launched investigations into NPR and PBS, non-commercial news organizations, for utilizing commercial advertisements. They’ve also launched a probe into CBS due to their firing of a reporter who was covering the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
Trump also has a history of anti-press rhetoric that dates back to his first-term candidacy nearly a decade ago. Just recently at an August 2024 rally in Pennsylvania, he referred to the New York Times as the “enemy of the people.”
At another Pennsylvania rally in November, Trump spoke through bullet-proof glass to address his supporters. Amidst a tangent where Trump addressed a gap in his protection, the president said the following:
“To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news, and I don’t mind that so much,” said Trump, referring to members of the press who were covering his rally.
“It’s really kind of a behavior we see more in countries with less developed or less sophisticated press freedom laws,” said Henry Jackson, a veteran reporter and adjunct professor at USC Annenberg. “It erodes our expectations that elected officials will be held accountable.”