President Donald Trump’s administration announced Tuesday that the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) will no longer decide which news outlets receive special access to the White House.
Instead, the White House press team will take over the role, ending decades of WHCA control. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt emphasized that legacy media would still have a presence but that newer or previously excluded outlets would now have opportunities to participate.
The move follows a lawsuit by The Associated Press over denied access to key White House areas, which a judge dismissed. Leavitt criticized the WHCA for representing a narrow group of D.C.-based journalists and pledged to broaden access.
WHCA President Eugene Daniels called the change a threat to press freedom. Meanwhile, the administration justified excluding AP over its refusal to adopt the “Gulf of America” naming, calling the organization’s reporting biased and misleading.
