News agencies, including Reuters and Bloomberg News, will no longer have a permanent place in the group of reporters covering US President Donald Trump, the White House said on Tuesday (15).
The decision was made after the Trump government lost last week a lawsuit filed by another news agency, the Associated Press about its previous exclusion from the press group.
Normally, the group consists of about 10 vehicles that accompany the president wherever he goes, whether at a meeting at the Oval Hall, where he makes statements or answers questions, or on national and international travel.
According to the new policy, news agencies will lose their usual place in the group, called Pool, and instead will be part of a larger rotation with about 30 other newspapers and printed vehicles.
The news agencies tend to cover the president and the White House more closely daily than most vehicles.
Other media customers, especially local news organizations that have no presence in Washington, depend on news agencies to get updated reports, videos and audio.
Financial markets also depend on the real -time reports of news agencies for information about the statements made by the president.
“Reuters’ news coverage reaches billions of people every day, mainly through thousands of news organizations around the world that sign the Reuters services,” said an agency spokesman.
“It is essential for democracy that the public has access to independent, impartial and accurate news about their government. Any US government measure to limit access to the president threatens this principle for both public and world media,” he continued.
Reuters is still committed to covering the White House impartially, accurately and independently, added the spokesman.
AP said the government actions were a serious disservice to the American people.
“We are deeply disappointed by the fact that the government has chosen to restrict access to all news agencies, whose rapid and accurate coverage of the White House informs billions of people every day, rather than reintegrating the Associated Press to the pool of agencies,” said spokesman Lauren Easton in a statement to Reuters.
Bloomberg did not immediately respond to comments requests.
Until the current government’s possession, the three news agencies – AP, Bloomberg and Reuters – were all standard pool members. But the White House barred the AP in February after it refused to refer to the water body to the south of the United States as the “Gulf of America,” as Trump had ordered to be called, rather than “Gulf of Mexico,” as it is traditionally known.
After excluding AP, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said her team would determine “who can enjoy very privileged and limited access in spaces like Air Force One and the Oval Hall.”
Until then, these places were decided by the White House correspondents, an organization formed by journalists who cover the White House and the president.
According to the guidance provided to Reuters by a White House employee on Tuesday (15), Leavitt will have the power to determine the group members daily “to ensure that the president’s message reaches the target audience and that vehicles with experience in the applicable subject are present as events justify it”.
The authority said the media may be included in the group “regardless of the substantive point of view expressed by a vehicle.”
Last week, a federal judge in Washington ordered the government to allow AP journalists to participate in events open to similar types of news organizations in the Oval Hall and Air Force One, as well as larger spaces in the White House, while the lawsuit progresses.
The judge considered that Trump’s White House retaliated AP for its editorial choices, violating the protections to the freedom of expression provided for in the US Constitution. The White House is using the decision.
This content was originally published in White House limits access to news agencies to events with Trump on CNN Brazil.
Source: CNN Brasil
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