Politico, New York Daily News, Daily Mail, and BuzzFeed were also denied entry
- Justin Carissimo New York
- @JstnMchl
The Independent US
The White House has blocked several major news outlets from covering its press briefing.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Friday hand selected news outlets to participate in an off-camera “gaggle” with reporters inside his West Wing office instead of the James S Brady Press Briefing Room.
The news outlets blocked from the press briefing include organisations who President Trump has criticised by name. CNN, BBC, The New York Times, LA Times, New York Daily News, BuzzFeed, The Hill, and the Daily Mail, were among the news outlets barred from the gathering.
“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.”
Fox News anchor Bret Baier discouraged conservative news outlets who celebrated the gaggle, citing organizations who defended his network when former President Obama tried to freeze out Fox News in 2009.
“Some at CNN and New York Times stood with FOX News when the Obama admin attacked us and tried to exclude us,” he wrote on Twitter, “a White House gaggle should be open to all credentialed orgs.”
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Friday hand selected news outlets to participate in an off-camera “gaggle” with reporters inside his West Wing office instead of the James S Brady Press Briefing Room.
The news outlets blocked from the press briefing include organisations who President Trump has criticised by name. CNN, BBC, The New York Times, LA Times, New York Daily News, BuzzFeed, The Hill, and the Daily Mail, were among the news outlets barred from the gathering.
Instead, the press secretary hand-picked news outlets including Breitbart News, One America News Network, The Washington Times, all news organisations with far-right leanings. Others major outlets approved included ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, Reuters and Bloomberg.
“Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long
history of covering multiple administrations of different parties,” Dean
Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times, said in a statement.“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.”
BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, also responded
to his outlet being barred from the briefing: “While we strongly object
to the White House’s apparent attempt to punish news outlets whose
coverage it does not like, we won’t let these latest antics distract us
from the work of continuing to cover this administration fairly and
aggressively.”
Several media outlets including the Associated Press and TIME
Magazine declined to attend the briefing to boycott the President's
decision.Fox News anchor Bret Baier discouraged conservative news outlets who celebrated the gaggle, citing organizations who defended his network when former President Obama tried to freeze out Fox News in 2009.
“Some at CNN and New York Times stood with FOX News when the Obama admin attacked us and tried to exclude us,” he wrote on Twitter, “a White House gaggle should be open to all credentialed orgs.”
Donald Trump: We are fighting the phoney, fake news
"The WHCA board is protesting strongly against how today's gaggle is being handled by the White House," he said in a statement. "We encourage the organizations 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."
No comments:
Post a Comment