White House Blocks Reporters From On-The-Record Briefing
WASHINGTON (CBS/AP) -- The White House prevented several prominent news organizations from attending an on the record White House press briefing on Friday.
The New York Times, CNN and Politico were not allowed to have reporters join the informal session, called a "gaggle,' with Press Secretary Sean Spicer.
Several news organizations were allowed in, including the conservative website Breitbart News. The site's former executive chairman, Steve Bannon, is chief strategist to President Donald Trump.
"Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties," Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, said in a statement.
NY Times White House correspondent Glenn Thrush works in the briefing room after being excluded from a gaggle https://t.co/cXuoUE2pkL pic.twitter.com/ly7WEnRrFJ
— Reuters Pictures (@reuterspictures) February 24, 2017
"We strongly protest the exclusion of The New York Times and the other news organizations. Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest."
The Associated Press chose not to participate.
CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC, One America News Network, The Wall Street Journal, McClatchy, Breitbart and Washington Times reporters attended.
???? Here's audio of what @seanspicer said at a press gaggle where certain media outlets were blocked from attending https://t.co/UVBA6wxHob pic.twitter.com/8zWskdydzT
— POLITICO (@politico) February 24, 2017
The White House defended the decision.
"We invited the pool so everyone was represented. We decided to add a couple of additional people beyond the pool. Nothing more than that," said White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders.
Bloomberg was included because we're in regular "pool."
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) February 24, 2017
AP invited too, but declined due to others' exclusion.
Bloomberg shared its audio.
At the briefing, Spicer said the Trump Administration was accessible.
.@PressSec told hand-picked reporters in closed briefing that Trump White House 'is more accessible than probably any prior administration'
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) February 24, 2017
The pool is a smaller group of rotating reporters that typically cover the president for the rest of the media when a larger group of journalists isn't practical. White House briefings are usually open to the larger White House press corps.
Earlier Friday in a speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference, President Donald Trump railed against the media.
The move also comes after news organizations reported on attempts by the White House to have the FBI refute stories that Trump operatives had been communicating with Russian officials during the presidential campaign.
And now, the topic of the evening is the media outlets excluded, not the Priebus interactions w FBI + question of open investigation.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 24, 2017