AP journalists testified recently on revocation of White House press pool access.
On Sunday, the White House released the new seating arrangements for the briefing room, breaking with the tradition of the White House Correspondents’ Association determining which outlets will have the seats. Those who are not assigned seats, stand along the sides and in the rear of the room.
A White House official said that the “fundamental restructuring of the briefing room, based on metrics more reflective of how media is consumed today.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt previously explained, “The Trump White House will speak to all media outlets and personalities, not just the legacy media who are seated in this room, because according to recent polling from Gallup, Americans’ trust in mass media has fallen to a record low.”
Two journalists for the Associated Press (AP) recently testified on how revoked access to the White House has negatively impacted the news outlet. The journalists’ testimony was given in the lawsuit the news outlet filed against three administration officials for the revoked access.
AP journalists were denied access to the White House journalist “pool“ after the outlet refused the request of President Trump’s administration to update its journalistic stylebook to call the “Gulf of Mexico” the “Gulf of America.” The journalist pool is a small group that follows the president to important locations such as the Oval Office and Air Force One.
As the Lord Leads, Pray with Us…
- For the president and White House officials as they determine which journalists will receive seats in the briefing room.
- For the judge to be discerning about First Amendment freedoms of the press as the lawsuit proceeds.
Sources: The Hill, Daily Wire
