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Reversing decades of precedent, the White House Correspondents Association announced Wednesday that it would no longer coordinate shared coverage of President Donald Trump in an escalating dispute over press access to official events.
The association, which represents more than 60 news organizations that regularly cover the president, said it would no longer manage the rotating cast of reporters who attend White House events or compile the shared accounts of news that are widely used in American political journalism.
“This board will not assist any attempt by this administration or any other in taking over independent press coverage of the White House,” WHCA President Eugene Daniels, a POLITICO journalist, said in a statement to association members. “Each of your organizations will have to decide whether or not you will take part in these new, government-appointed pools.”
Their decision came after the White House, angered over coverage of the administration, has excluded certain organizations from news events in what the correspondents association see as retribution that undermines freedom of the press under the First Amendment and exceeds familiar tensions between presidents and the media.
Daniels told members to stop sending reports to an association listserv that allows their work to be shared by other journalists, as the White House had now taken control of the process.
The “WHCA cannot ensure that the reports filed by government-selected poolers will be held to the same standards that we have had in place for decades,” he wrote.
The decision comes days after the administration won a temporary ruling allowing it to bar The Associated Press from pooled events, and a day after press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the White House will determine which outlets have access to the president as part of the pool allowed into the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One and into other meetings and events that cannot accommodate the full press corps.
It also comes the same day that the White House press shop — with no explanation — removed the Huffington Post from the pool of journalists covering the president. The liberal outlet was scheduled to the pooler on Wednesday, until its White House correspondent, S.V. Date, received a late-night text informing him that he would no longer be granted access.
Daniels listed out several questions the association — and the White House press corps writ large — have for the administration about how shared coverage of the president will be handled in the future.
He also pointed to the White House’s move to bar HuffPost from the pool — and whether moving forward, the rotation will be compiled of news organizations of their choice.
“As I said yesterday, this move from the White House threatens the independence of a free press in the United States,” Daniels added. “It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president. You will continue to hear me say that in a free society, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.”
The annual White House Correspondents Dinner, a high-profile event that presidents other than Trump have attended for decades, is expected to be held as scheduled on April 26, he said.
