As a spokeswoman for then-Vice President Kamala Harris, there were times when I wished I could have chosen the reporters who were covering her that day. Certainly, there were a few I hoped wouldn’t show up on a particular day, based on the off-topic questions they were likely to ask.
But I never — ever — would have done that.
That’s because for more than a century, the White House Correspondents’ Association, a private organization made up of some of the finest journalists in the country, has been in charge of the press pool, deciding which journalists are allowed into the limited-capacity rooms on a rotating basis and distributing their write-ups so that every media outlet gets the same access.
Now, the Donald Trump administration has thrown out that system in a brazen attack on the principles of American democracy and the free press, in favor of one in which they handpick their favorites and — more importantly — block those who are asking uncomfortable questions or refusing to toe the party line.
This dramatic change comes as the White House has blocked The Associated Press over its decision to continue using the name the Gulf of Mexico, threatened to use the Federal Communications Commission to go after news coverage by TV and radio stations and launched probes of NPR and PBS, while Trump has personally sued “60 Minutes” over an interview with Harris he didn’t like.
The White House has always had a contentious relationship with the press, but never to this level.
The White House has always had a contentious relationship with the press, but never to this level. In fact, the first White House press briefing grew out of an attempt by both sides to manage the difficulties inherent in press coverage.
On March 15, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson’s private secretary promised the commander-in-chief would speak with reporters individually, face to face, at 12:45 p.m. that day. When the time came, more than 100 reporters showed up, forcing Wilson to address them as a group. Even though it was unintentional, this was the first White House press briefing.
The following year, when Wilson threatened to end these press conferences because “certain evening newspapers” quoted remarks he considered off the record, the journalists banded together to start the White House Correspondents’ Association. Their first order of business was to ensure the press conferences had accredited reporters.
The reporters who cover the White House have an arrangement where they combine their resources in service of the collection of news. This arrangement is what is called the “pool.” If an event, meeting or trip is being covered by the pool, it means a certain group of journalists will physically be present and those journalists will share the details of the event with everyone else. (This is just logistics! You cannot fit 100 reporters into the Oval Office.) The journalists themselves have decided who should be allowed in through a system that ensures fairness and access for all journalists across the board, regardless of who the president is.
One of the last international trips I took with Harris was in 2021 to France for a series of meetings and engagements with President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders in the European Union. From the first day of the trip to the last, we were beleaguered by stories about her supposedly using a French accent (which was not true) and buying expensive pots from a French culinary store.
Of course, I would have preferred to select the reporters who went with us on the trip, but that’s not how it worked. It was not up to me who traveled, how they interpreted what they saw and how they communicated that to the rest of the journalists who were not with us. My job as a press liaison was to work with the reporters on the trip to give them as much access and information as possible.
It can be disheartening to spend all that time helping a reporter with logistics, ensuring they’re in the right place at the right time and patiently answering their questions, only to read a story that you felt was not a fair representation of what happened. But that’s democracy. The people in power do not get to decide who writes about them or what they write; that only happens in dictatorships and autocracies. This announcement came as The Associated Press continues fighting to regain access to the Oval Office and Air Force One, including filing a lawsuit. The current White House press secretary has been clear that if the AP complies with the demand to call the body of water off of Florida the “Gulf of America,” its access to the Oval Office and other events would be restored. In other words, the White House wants to dictate the specific words that appear in AP stories and it will punish the agency until it bows to its demand. Don’t believe for a minute they will stop there if this tactic works. It was the first time in a month The Associated Press had the opportunity to question Trump. On Tuesday, when Macron and Trump took questions from reporters in the Oval Office, the American journalist with The Associated Press was again blocked from entering the room, but their French counterpart was allowed to enter. The press corps traveling with Macron collectively decided their colleague representing the AP’s Paris bureau should ask the first question. It was the first time in a month the outlet had the opportunity to question Trump. This kind of collective action can work. During the Obama administration, the White House tried to block Fox News from participating in an interview with a Treasury official. The press corps responded to defend their colleague and collectively refused to cover the official until Fox News was also permitted to do so, and the White House backed down. That didn’t happen this time. When the AP was first blocked from the Oval Office, not one of its peers refused to cover the events that day. Not one journalist even asked a question on behalf of the AP. Concurrently, when White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the changes to the selection of the press pool this week, the journalists in the room treated it as business as usual. One could argue that had the current press corps taken a page out of their colleagues’ book and publicly protested the punitive treatment of the AP, the White House may have thought twice about this week’s move. The White House Correspondents’ Association, by contrast, has been doing the work. It has actively supported The Associated Press through its fight for access and vehemently defended the precedent of a press pool determined by the press. At this moment, the entirety of the White House press corps is under attack, and it needs to fight back aggressively while it still can.
Symone D. Sanders Townsend is an author and a co-host of "The Weeknight." 
