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If you’re checking in to see if the White House Correspondents’ Association appeasement plan for President Donald Trump worked out in their favor, the answer would be: obviously not! On Sunday, Axios reported that the White House plans to take over the seating chart of the briefing room, which has long been organized by the WHCA. A senior White House official described the plot as a “fundamental restructuring of the briefing room, based on metrics more reflective of how media is consumed today.”
As the official told Axios, “The goal isn’t merely favorable coverage.” (It’s also to punish outlets giving unfavorable coverage, right?) He claimed, “It’s truly an honest look at consumption [of the outlets’ coverage]. Influencers are important but it’s tough because they aren’t [equipped to provide] consistent coverage. So the ability to cover the White House is part of the metrics.” Legacy outlets will reportedly still have a place in the briefing room, but some may experience what Axios describes as diminished visibility, banished from the front row seats they used to enjoy. The new layout will reportedly include TV, print, and digital outlets, with digital assignments going to influencers as well as “newer organizations” like NOTUS, Punchbowl, and wouldn’t you know it, Axios. Per the White House official, the admin wants “to balance disruption with responsibility.” Sure, Jan.
News of this plan has caused concern for the WHCA, which seems to be struggling with supporting journalism and free speech and getting the Trump admin off its back. When the WHCA supported the Associated Press’ suit to get back in the President’s press pool, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared, “For decades a group of DC based journalists, the White House Correspondents’ Association, has long dictated which journalists get to ask questions of the president of the United States in these most intimate spaces. Not anymore.” Axios claimed that a WHCA member supposedly floated a plan of compromise for the seating chart issue that would automatically make the White House Press Secretary (currently: Leavitt) its president.
In a message to members on Monday, the WHCA denied this option as “ridiculous,” adding, “No board member or official representative of the WHCA has ever put forward such a non-starter suggestion.” Further, it called on the White House to “abandon this wrong-headed effort and show the American people they’re not afraid to explain their policies and field questions from an independent media free from government control.” The message stated that “if the White House pushes forward, it will become even more clear that the administration is seeking to cynically seize control of the system through which the independent press organizes itself, so that it is easier to exact punishment on outlets over their coverage.”
The WHCA emphasized that its membership includes plenty of digital and “new media” outlets from all sides of the political spectrum. “The most obvious end result of this reported plan is the punishment, not elevation, of journalists. It’s the same at the Pentagon, where the administration removed longstanding outlets whose coverage they disagreed with for other outlets that did not regularly cover the building.” The message added an offer of logistical support to the White House in “[accommodating] more and different types of journalists,” but argued that “For the public to get the information it needs to understand and make decisions about the most powerful office in the world, it needs news produced by experienced, professional journalists who ask tough questions and produce fair coverage.”
The latest battle between the Trump administration and the free press comes after the WHCA dropped Amber Ruffin—a funny comedian who has made many jokes at Trump’s expense—from the lineup of its annual Correspondents’ Dinner, despite the fact that Trump wasn’t even going to attend. Nevertheless the admin continues to undermine the WHCA wherever possible, with the AP and HuffPost getting kicked out of the press pool and Bloomberg and Reuters have been forced to share a wire spot after theirs were given to Newsmax and Blaze Media, proving once again that no amount of concessions will ever be enough to satisfy the self-serving whims of the current admin. Hopefully this isn’t a lesson we have to learn over and over again ad nauseam for the rest of the term.
