The Trump administration said Tuesday that it would no longer reserve a regular slot in the presidential press pool for three independent newswires that have participated for decades, including The Associated Press.
The move is the latest effort by the White House to exert more control over the dedicated press corps that reports on its day-to-day activities. It was also a new wrinkle in an unfolding legal battle with The A.P., whose journalists have been barred for the past two months from covering small-scale events with the president.
A federal judge said last week that the White House had to restore full access to A.P. journalists, ruling that the administration’s ban amounted to a violation of the First Amendment. The White House has appealed, and a hearing is set for Thursday.
The presidential press pool is a small, rotating group of reporters who are granted access to more intimate events with the president, such as Oval Office receptions, and relay the proceedings to other journalists and the broader public. It is a logistical accommodation for smaller spaces that cannot fit dozens of reporters, and an opportunity for journalists to interact close-up with the president and ask him direct questions.
In February, breaking decades of bipartisan precedent, the administration said that it would begin handpicking the members of the pool, wresting control away from the independent White House Correspondents’ Association, which decried the move. “In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps,” the group said at the time.
On Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, released a more specific set of guidelines for the press pool, including the elimination of a slot reserved for journalists representing one of three major newswires: The A.P., Bloomberg News and Reuters. (Newswires distribute syndicated news articles, videos and photographs to thousands of other media outlets around the United States and the world, many of which cannot afford to employ reporters in Washington.)
That slot, Ms. Leavitt said, would instead be filled by an additional journalist from a print media outlet, selected from a rotation of several dozen. Reporters at the three newswires are still eligible to fill the print media slot, but they will no longer be granted access to these sorts of presidential events on a near-daily basis. The change was first reported by The New York Post.
“The White House press secretary shall retain day-to-day discretion to determine composition of the pool,” Ms. Leavitt said in a memorandum. “This is necessary to ensure that the president’s message reaches targeted audiences and that outlets with applicable subject-matter expertise are present as events warrant.”
President Trump and his allies have embarked on a multipronged effort to weaken branches of the American independent press, filing lawsuits against ABC and CBS and threatening to rescind the broadcast licenses of major networks.
The administration’s dispute with The A.P. stems from the newswire’s continued use of the term “Gulf of Mexico” to refer to the body of water that Mr. Trump renamed the Gulf of America in an executive order.
In response, White House officials in February blocked A.P. journalists from participating in the press pool, prompting the newswire to file a lawsuit to restore its access.
Representatives for Bloomberg and The A.P. did not immediately return requests for comment on Tuesday. The White House Correspondents’ Association also did not immediately comment.
A Reuters spokeswoman said in a statement, “We remain committed to covering the White House in an impartial, accurate and independent way.”
Trump officials say that the changes are intended to grant more opportunities to nontraditional media outlets as Americans often consume information from venues beyond traditional news sources. “Legacy media outlets who have been here for years will still participate in the pool, but new voices are going to be welcomed in as well,” Ms. Leavitt said in February.
Earlier this year, The A.P., Bloomberg and Reuters issued a joint statement saying that “much of the White House coverage people see in their local news outlets, wherever they are in the world, comes from the wires.”
“It is essential in a democracy for the public to have access to news about their government from an independent, free press,” the statement continued. “We believe that any steps by the government to limit the number of wire services with access to the President threatens that principle.”
