White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Tuesday that more reporters would have more access to President Donald Trump, who is already one of the most accessible world leaders in recent history.
Yet in the bizarro world of Washington, D.C., the elitist White House press corps reacted with scorn, calling the move a threat to the free press.
It’s not. But the legacy media’s once-might monopoly is crumbling like a house of cards—and there’s nothing they can do to salvage their role as gatekeepers of news and information.
Instead, newly credentialed journalists like The Daily Signal’s Elizabeth Mitchell will now have a chance to compete with the old guard for access to the president as part of the press pool shake-up. Rather than outsource the rotation to the unaccountable White House Correspondents Association, Trump’s press team will handle the assignments.
The American people should rejoice at Leavitt’s announcement.
“For decades, a group of D.C.-based journalists—the White House Correspondents Association—has long dictated which journalists get to ask questions of the president of the United States,” Leavitt said at Tuesday’s press briefing. “Not anymore. I am proud to announce that we are going to give the power back to the people.”
It’s a welcome change from the previous administration, which was among the least accessible and attempted to hide President Joe Biden’s mental decline from the media.
In 2023, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre even took the unprecedented step of purging 442 journalists—more than 30% of the White House press corps—by revoking their credentials. The Daily Signal lost its pass, and only recently reacquired it when Trump took office.
At the time, there wasn’t so much as a peep or protest from the same White House reporters who are now claiming an assault on press freedom.
That vaunted White House Correspondents Association, which claims to fight for access on behalf of journalists, took a “noncommittal stance” on the 2023 press purge. The WHCA made no effort to assist The Daily Signal despite our repeated pleas for help.
Moments after Leavitt’s announcement, however, the WHCA’s president was out with a statement blasting Trump for jeopardizing “the independence of a free press in the United States.”
“WHCA will never stop advocating for comprehensive access, full transparency, and the right of the American public to read, listen to, and watch reports from the White House, delivered without fear or favor,” wrote Eugene Daniels, Politico’s White House correspondent and current WHCA president.
Daniels’ statement was tepid compared to the hyperbolic reaction of others.
Let’s start with Susan Glasser, a staff writer for the New Yorker, and her husband Peter Baker, the White House correspondent for the New York Times. Each compared Leavitt’s decision to democratize the White House press pool to the Kremlin’s actions in Russia.
“Trump White House on the way to establishing its own version of a Kremlin press pool, approved media only,” Glasser wrote.
A few minutes later, Baker added, “Having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin’s reign, this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access.”
Brian Karem, the former Playbook reporter whose obnoxious taunting got him booted from the White House in 2019, claimed that “Donald Trump has seized control of the Press Pool. He now has sole authority over who covers him. Tell me how this is democracy.”
They obviously didn’t listen closely to Leavitt’s comments from the lectern on Tuesday.
“Legacy outlets who have participated in the press pool for decades will still be allowed to join, fear not, 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.
Leavitt also announced the White House would maintain the current press pool rotation of the five major TV networks: ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC.
Reporters in the White House press pool travel with the president on Air Force One and have access to tight quarters like the Oval Office, sharing with their journalist peers via email quotes and other information about his movements. The pool typically includes journalists from television, print, and radio outlets, plus photographers.
Trump recently announced the Associated Press would no longer have access to these intimate spaces over its refusal to reference the renamed Gulf of America in its stories and stylebook. A judge sided with the White House in a Monday ruling.
Twice in the past, legacy media outlets questioned The Daily Signal’s participation in the press pool. In 2017, The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi asked if The Daily Signal was “a legitimate news outlet.” Then in 2020, The New York Times’ Annie Karni wrote a story about my role as a pool reporter for Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to Florida.
Other media outlets will now have their turn to experience the legacy media’s wrath.
Meanwhile, the White House is standing firmly behind the change.
Communications Director Steven Cheung said that “Glasser is stuck in her old, tired ways of doing things so this new way of doing things is a threat to her dying career.”
Leavitt then told Baker, “Gone are the days where left-wing stenographers posing as journalists, such as yourself, dictate who gets to ask what.”
Deputy Chief of Staff and Cabinet Secretary Taylor Budowich added, “Honest, level-headed journalism is dying at the hands of tired, hyperbolic losers like this who are more concerned with booking their next MSNBC hit than they are with doing their jobs. Yet, look forward to seeing Peter in the pool again soon!”
Ironically, moments after Baker made his ridiculous Kremlin claim, Trump spent an hour in the Oval Office answering questions from reporters. Fortunately, more journalists will now have that opportunity to join the president—not just the privileged elite of the legacy media.
Rob Bluey is president and executive editor of The Daily Signal.
Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal – By Rob Bluey
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
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