White House Moves to Pick the Pool Reporters Who Cover Trump

[highplainsdem]

Source: NYT

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday that the Trump administration would start handpicking which media outlets were allowed to participate in the presidential pool, the small, rotating group of journalists who relay the president’s day-to-day activities to the public.

The change announced by Ms. Leavitt breaks decades of precedent. The White House Correspondents’ Association, a group representing journalists who cover the administration, has long determined on its own which reporters would participate in the daily pool.

Because presidents often hold events in smaller settings like the Oval Office, where not every reporter who covers the president can fit, the pool format has long been used to ensure that journalists accurately record a president’s comments. The reporters who witness the events distribute a series of “pool reports” to a wider group of journalists, including hundreds of news outlets that cover his daily activities and remarks.

The pool is most often made up of journalists from organizations like CNN, Reuters, The Associated Press, ABC News, Fox News and The New York Times.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/business/media/trump-white-house-press.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

[Lovie777]

1. Will not going to work.................

[Initech]

2. He's really moving toward full James Bond villain, isn't he?

[usaf-vet]

4. Anyone who takes that job will forever be known as an acceptable Trump sycophant. They will not report news that.....

......... will be trusted. They will be listening to lies and fabrications. Their reporting will, therefore, be fabrications of lies.

[eggplant]

3. I hope the press pool pushes back as a group.

[highplainsdem]

5. Senior White House correspondent from Fox News objects to this move.

Ron Filipkowski posted this screen shot of her tweet on both Twitter and Bluesky:

[jls4561]

6. Only toadies, sycophants and whores need apply.

Karoline Leavitt (aka RoboLiar) already has a large pool to choose from.

[msongs]

7. no bigee. just stop covering anything he does or says. most of it is garbage anyway nt

[Stonealone]

11. True

I believe that half the stuff he says is just to get and keep everyone's attention. Let's just ignore the Orange Monkey and see how long it takes to let the REAL ( his FAKE NEWS) press back in!

[robleb]

8. As TJ said....

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost”
-Thomas Jefferson, 1786

[Ojerly]

9. How hard would he cry

if they held a presser and no one showed up?

[sinkingfeeling]

10. Hunting for only those that will relay what the 'king' wants.

[mdbl]

12. Who cares.

He'll pick the best liars and then will even lie to them. There will be no news coming from the White House except his latest grift and who he hates.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

13. From the Associated Press:

POLITICS
The White House says it ‘will determine’ which news outlets cover Trump, rotating traditional ones

{snip picture}
Associated Press reporter Laurie Kellman is photographed in Washington, Friday, Dec, 4, 2014. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)

BY LAURIE KELLMAN
Updated 6:53 PM EST, February 25, 2025
Share

The White House said Tuesday that its officials “will determine” which news outlets can regularly cover President Donald Trump up close — a sharp break from a century of tradition in which a pool of independently chosen news organizations go where the chief executive does and hold him accountable on behalf of regular Americans.

The move, coupled with the government’s arguments this week in a federal lawsuit over access filed by The Associated Press, represented an unprecedented seizing of control over coverage of the American presidency by any administration. Free speech advocates expressed alarm.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the changes would rotate traditional outlets from the group and include some streaming services. Leavitt cast the change as a modernization of the press pool, saying the move would be more inclusive and restore “access back to the American people” who elected Trump. But media experts said the move raised troubling First Amendment issues because the president is choosing who covers him.

{snip}