WASHINGTON — Journalists from and several other news organizations were prohibited from attending a briefing by President
Trump’s press secretary on Friday, a highly unusual breach of relations between the White House and its press corps.
Reporters from The Times, BuzzFeed News, CNN, The Los Angeles Times
and Politico were not allowed to enter the West Wing office of the press secretary, Sean M. Spicer, for the scheduled briefing.
Aides to Mr. Spicer only allowed in reporters from a handpicked group of news organizations that, the White House said, had been previously confirmed.
board is protesting strongly against how today’s gaggle is being handled by the
White House,” the association president, Jeff Mason, said in a statement.
Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest.”
The White House Correspondents’ Association, which represents the press corps, quickly rebuked the White House’s actions.
“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.
Reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press, who were set to be allowed
in, chose not to attend the briefing in protest of the White House’s actions.
The White House move came hours after Mr. Trump delivered a slashing attack on
the news media in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
