White House bars some news organisations from briefing

Reporters for CNN, The New York Times, Politico, The Los Angeles Times and BuzzFeed were not allowed into briefing of press secretary Sean Spicer; US media rebels against Trump, widely condemns the action; Committee to Protect Journalists also expresses concern over govt action

WASHINGTON: Tensions between mainstream US media and Trump administration has reached new heights after White House barred reporters of top news organisations from attending an informal briefing by Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

In an unprecedented move, journalists from The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CNN and Politico were blocked from joining an informal, on-the-record White House press briefing. 

Several others including the Associated Press, Time Magazine and USA Today boycotted the event citing the exclusion of other organisations.

Officials only allowed in reporters from a handpicked group of news organisations that, the White House said, had been previously confirmed. Those organisations included Breitbart News, the One America News Network and The Washington Times, all with conservative leanings. Journalists from ABC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Fox News also attended.

Dean Baquet, the Executive Editor for The New York Times, noted that the decision to exclude the newspaper was unprecedented in its 150 year-plus history. “Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties,” Baquet said in a statement. “We strongly protest the exclusion of The New York Times and the other news organisations. Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest.”

When asked by a reporter attending the briefing whether he was playing favorites, Spicer said the White House had shown an abundance of accessibility.

The move came hours after President Trump said journalists should not be allowed to use anonymous sources, and accused the press of producing fake news.

The White House action was widely condemned by media organisations across the United States and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also expressed concern over the White House action.

“We are concerned by the decision to bar reporters from a press secretary briefing. The US should be promoting press freedom and access to information,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon.

Jeff Mason, President of the White House Correspondents' Association, (WHCA) said his group is “protesting strongly” the ban and encouraging those news organisations who were allowed in to share their notes.

“The WHCA board is protesting strongly against how today's gaggle is being handled by the White House,” Mason said in a statement. “We encourage the organisations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not. The board will be discussing this further with White House staff.”

The White House sought to downplay the episode, noting that a press pooler was invited into the briefing as a stand-in for the press corps writ large.

In a statement, BuzzFeed said they wouldn't “let these latest antics distract us from continuing to cover this administration fairly and aggressively.”

In a statement CNN called the ban unacceptable.

Washington Post Editor Marty Baron called the ban appalling. “It’s appalling that the White House would exclude news outlets like the New York Times, CNN, Politico, the Los Angeles Times, and BuzzFeed from its publicly announced briefings,” Baron said in a statement. “This is an undemocratic path that the administration is traveling. There is nothing to be gained from the White House restricting the public’s access to information. We are currently evaluating what our response will be if this sort of thing happens again.”

Politico Editor-in-Chief John Harris and Editor Carrie Budoff Brown said Politico plans to “very vigorously assert and defend” the media's right to cover the presidency.

A representative from The Wall Street Journal said the Journal would have not joined the gaggle had they known it was an exclusive event.

“The Wall Street Journal strongly objects to the White House's decision to bar certain media outlets from today's gaggle,” the statement read. "Had we known at the time, we would not have participated and we will not participate in such closed briefings in the future.”

Reuters adds: Reuters was included in the session, along with about 10 other news organisations, including Bloomberg and CBS.

President Donald Trump has regularly attacked the media and at a gathering of conservative activists on Friday he criticised news organisations that he said provide "fake news", calling them the "enemy" of the American people.

Spicer said his team decided to have a gaggle in his office on Friday instead of a full briefing in the larger White House briefing room and argued that “we don´t need to do everything on camera every day”.

Reporters at the Associated Press and Time magazine walked out of the briefing when hearing that others had been barred from the session.

A pool reporter from Hearst Newspapers was included in the gaggle on Friday and gave full details to the entire press corps. Media outlets allowed into the gaggle also shared their audio with others.