US President Donald Trump last week announced he would ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House amid coverage that Trump said was unfavourable.
Reporters for the three outlets reported to work over the weekend only to find that their access had been revoked. By Monday, the three organisations had sued the administration, amid allegations the White House violated their First Amendment rights.
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Free speech advocates criticised the White House for yanking their credentials.
“It’s difficult to imagine a more blatant violation of the First Amendment than Trump banning news outlets from the People’s House for criticizing the government. It’s also hard to imagine a dumber move,” Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement.
“The historically unpopular president has been retaliating against the press for years, but it hasn’t helped him. The press keeps exposing his corruption and his failures. These outrageous attacks only demonstrate how scared he is of an informed public.”
The White House has nevertheless defended the decision, with US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio also supporting the administration’s position.
On Monday, Bryan Boughton, Fox News’s Washington bureau chief and the chair of the rotating TV pool, announced in a memo that the television networks that participate in the pool would suspend presidential pool coverage following CNN’s removal from its scheduled pool duties, according to reporting from Politico.
What is the pool?
The White House press pool is a group of reporters who follow the president in smaller settings when space restrictions prevent the broader press corps from being on location.
Pool reporters share their reporting with other journalists and news organisations. It provides them with raw newsgathering material, including transcripts of news briefings and information about the president’s, and often his staff’s, whereabouts.
Essentially, wherever the president goes, a small group of reporters is there to document what happens and relay that information to the rest of the White House press corps to use as they see fit for their reporting.
Pool coverage is not intended to be editorialised. It serves as a shared newsgathering resource, allowing other news organisations to report on events they could not directly attend.
Often, the details are fairly mundane, such as what time the president’s motorcade leaves the White House or when he arrives at an event, what time Air Force One lands and takes off, and the remarks the president made before boarding.
For television networks, the pool also provides video and audio feeds that other news organisations can use at their discretion.
The system exists in part because of physical limitations, as Air Force One has limited space for members of the press. There are only 13 seats for reporters on the president’s plane.
Each day, different news organisations are assigned pool duties. The television pool rotates among five networks. Those are ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC. Other parts of the pool include print, radio and new media organisations.
How will this impact other outlets?
Subscribers to pooled coverage include smaller television station groups, streaming networks and international news organisations that may not have their own crews with the president.
That also includes organisations such as C-SPAN and other outlets that rely on pooled video and audio to cover presidential events.
The effect was immediately visible Monday during an event at the White House. The president’s remarks were difficult to hear because there was no TV pool crew providing the usual audio feed.
The memo obtained by Politico said the TV pool would continue providing coverage for other parts of government, including Congress.
How has the pool historically been used?
The pool has been at the helm of coverage of some of the biggest events in recent US history.
On September 11, 2001, pool reporters were with President George W Bush during his visit to an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida, when he was informed about the attacks in New York, and they documented his reaction.
Decades earlier, in 1981, pool reporters were present for the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr.
A little less than a decade earlier, the pool also accompanied President Richard Nixon on his historic 1972 visit to China, and in 1963 pool reporters were travelling with President John F Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas, Texas when he was assassinated.
In 1945, three wire-service reporters who were part of the pool travelled with President Franklin D Roosevelt by train to Georgia and were with him when he passed away there.
