The head of the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) says the public can no longer trust pool reports now that the reporters included in the small group will be controlled by President Trump’s team.
“For years the WHCA had created a format for standards, length, accuracy for the American people that they could trust that those standards created by the folks that actually do the work were understood by everyone and you could trust the reports that were coming out of that,” Eugene Daniels, president of the WHCA said during an appearance on MSNBC.
“That can longer be trusted frankly,” he added. “Because at the end of the day, these standards are going to be created by the folks that are being covered.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday announced that the West Wing would decide moving forward which outlets are included in the group covering the president’s daily activities.
The move comes after White House banned The Associated Press, one of the wire services typically included in the pool, from key White House spaces over its refusal to change its style on the “Gulf of Mexico,” which was renamed by the Trump administration to “Gulf of America.”
The decision has been widely condemned by press freedom groups and reporters covering the White House.
On Wednesday, outlets like Bloomberg, the New York Times and Reuters were included in the pool, as was new media outlets like The Blaze and Newsmax.
The White House has vowed to give more frequent opportunities to “well deserving” so called “new media” outlets who will help spread “President Trump’s message,” according to Leavitt.
“This is not about us at the WHCA,” Daniels added on Wednesday. “This is about the American people being able to depend on what comes out of these press pools and getting an unvarnished look at the people who run their country.”
