The White House said 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 organisations go where the chief executive does to hold him accountable on behalf of regular Americans.
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 modernisation 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 was choosing who covered him.
“The White House press team, in this administration, will determine who gets to enjoy the very privileged and limited access in spaces such as Air Force One and the Oval Office,” Leavitt said at a daily briefing.
She added at another point: “A select group of DC-based journalists should no longer have a monopoly of press access at the White House.”
Leavitt also said the White House would “double down” on its decision to bar The Associated Press from many presidential events, in a departure from the time-tested and sometimes contentious practice for more than a century of a pool of journalists from every platform sharing the presidents’ words and activities with news outlets and congressional offices that can’t attend the close-quarter events.
Traditionally, the members of the pool decide who goes in small spaces such as the Oval Office and Air Force One.
“It’s beyond time that the White House press operation reflects the media habits of the American people in 2025, not 1925,” Leavitt said.
There are First Amendment implications
An expert on presidents and the press said the change was “a dangerous move for democracy”.
”It means the president can pick and choose who covers the executive branch, ignoring the fact that it is the American people who through their taxes pay for the running of the White House, the president’s travels and the press secretary’s salary,” said Jon Marshall, a media history professor at Northwestern University and author of Clash: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis.
Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said the organisation consistently expanded its membership and pool rotations to facilitate the inclusion of new and emerging outlets.
“This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States. It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president,” Daniels said in a statement.
“In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.”
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press called it “a drastic change in how the public obtains information about its government”.
“The White House press pool exists to serve the public, not the presidency,” Bruce Brown, the group’s president, said in a statement.
It comes in the context of a federal lawsuit
Leavitt spoke a day after a federal judge refused to immediately order the White House to restore the AP’s access to many presidential events.
The news outlet, citing the First Amendment, sued Leavitt and two other White House officials for barring the AP from some presidential events over its refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” as Trump ordered.
AP has said its style would retain the “Gulf of Mexico” name but also would note Trump’s decision.
US District Judge Trevor McFadden said the AP had not demonstrated it had suffered irreparable harm.
But he urged the Trump administration to reconsider its two-week-old ban, saying that case law in the circuit “is uniformly unhelpful to the White House”.
McFadden’s decision was only for the moment, however.
He told attorneys for the Trump administration and the AP that the issue required more exploration before ruling.
Another hearing was scheduled for later in March.
The AP Stylebook is used by international audiences as well as those within the United States.
The AP said that its guidance was offered to promote clarity.
Another Trump executive order to change the name of the United States’ largest mountain back to Mount McKinley from Denali is being recognised by the AP Stylebook.
Trump has the authority to do so because the mountain is completely within the country he oversees, AP said.
