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On Tuesday, the White House announced U.S officials will decide which news media will cover President Trump’s engagements. This is quite a shift from the practiced standard where a pool of independent news agencies chosen by voters were supposed to cover the president’s activities.
Leavitt said the traditional group will be changed to include some streaming services. The changes that were suggested, Leavitt said, will ‘modernize’ the press pool and will ‘increase’ access to the press on behalf of the American citizens who voted Trump into office. This infomation caused panic amongst the experts as the put forward the idea of raising alarming violations to the First Amendment in which the president gets to choose the media that covers him.
The people in charge of White House Communications “will choose who gets the very privileged and limited access to places like Air Force One and the Oval Office,” Leavitt stated during a daily briefing. She noted at a different time: “Some journalists based in D.C. should no longer have a press monopoly the White House.” Leavitt claimed that the White House “will double down” on the decision of barring The Associated Press from multiple presidential engagements. This runs counter to the over-a-century-old practice of allowing a rotating group of journalists to cover the activities of the presidents. AP claims, “Traditionaly, some of the members of the pool choose who covers small spaces like the Oval Office and Air Force One”. Leavitt said, “It is bordering ridiculous that the WH press office continues to operate under the thinking that was acceptable in 1925; the American public is much more savvy and deserves better, particularly in 2025.”
There are implications concerning the First Amendment. The change, in the words of one specialist of presidents and the press, “is a dangerous move for democracy.” It implies that the president can select who covers the executive for the branch, turning a blind eye to the fact that it is the American people, through their taxes, that fund the running of the White House, the president’s travels, and the salary of the press secretary. As Jon Marshall states, a media history expert at Northwestern University and author of the text “Clash: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis,” he means it is a dangerous move for democracy.
Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents' Association, told that the Association maintains an offer and rotates new and niche publications for membership in the organization on a regular basis.
“It is an attack on the freedom of a free press in America. It indicates that the government will select which journalists will get access to cover the President,” Daniels said in his remarks. “A free country should not allow its leaders to pick their own journalists to report on them.” It is part of a federal lawsuit context that Leavitt mentioned a day after a federal judge would not instantaneously require the White House to let the AP access various presidential activities again. The news organization has claimed, under the auspices of the First Amendment, that Leavitt along with two other White House aides illegitimately disabled the access of AP to some presidential functions because of a standing order that they will not use the term Gulf of Mexico, rather use “Gulf of America” as instructed by Trump. AP has said that while it will keep the phrase ‘Gulf of Mexico’ in its stylebook, it will also acknowledge that Trump made such a decision.
U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden said the AP had not proven any claimed irreparable harm. But he encouraged the Trump administration to lift its ban from two weeks ago, arguing that case law in the circuit “is uniformly unhelpful to the White House.” Nonetheless, McFadden's ruling was only interim. He directed both lawyers for the Trump administration and the AP that further evidence needed to be gathered prior to a decision being rendered. Another hearing was set for the end of March.
The AP Stylebook is utilized internationally and regionally within the US. About this, the AP made mention as part of their attempt to aid understanding within their audience.
Another executive order by Trump to bring back the old name, Mount McKinley, to the United States largest mountain is now getting mentioned by the AP Stylebook. Trump is able to do it since the mountain is within the bounds of the territory he controls, the AP argued.
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