Hours After Trump Attacks ‘Dishonest Media’ White House Blocks CNN, NY Times From Press Briefing

Breitbart Allowed Access

Just hours after President Donald Trump repeatedly attacked what he referred to as the “dishonest media” in a speech to far right wing conservatives at CPAC several top national media organizations were blocked from the White House daily press briefing. Among those denied access were The New York Times, CNN, The L.A. Times, POLITICO, and Buzzfeed News. Chief White House Strategist Steve Bannon’s former employer, Breitbart, a far right wing website that he once bragged was the home for the “alt-right” was allowed access. 

In response, the Associated Press and TIME refused to attend.

CNN’s Sara Murray tweeted that “ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX were all allowed in.” Also allowed in were The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, and Fox News.

The New York Times notes the White House Correspondents’ Association “issued a quick rebuke of the White House’s actions.” 

“The W.H.C.A. 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. “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.”

UPDATE I: 2:50 PM EST –
CNN’s Sara Murray on air explained what happened, via The Washington Post:

We lined up. We were told there was a list ahead of time, which is sort of abnormal, but we put our name on a list. And then when we went to enter, I was blocked by a White House staffer, who said we were not on the list for this gaggle today.

Now, normally, if you were going to do something like this — an extended gaggle, off camera — you would have one person from each news outlet. As you know, we have multiple people from CNN here every day. So, if you’re going to do something beyond a pool, which is sort of the smallest group of reporters that then disseminates the information, you would have one person from every news outlet.

That is not what the White House was doing today. What the White House was doing was hand-picking the outlets they wanted in for this briefing. So Breitbart, the Washington Times, the One America News Network — news outlets that maybe the White House feels are more favorable were all allowed in, whereas I was blocked from entering, Politico was blocked from entering, the New York Times, the L.A. Times. All of these news outlets were blocked from going to a gaggle.

Here’s the video:

 

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