Censorship

Get Those Reporters Out of the Pool!

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Article in The New York Times by Michael M. Grynbaym, 2/25/25

Headline:  “White House Moves to Pick the Pool Reporters Who Cover Trump”

Subhead:  “In announcing plans to handpick the reporters who can ask the president questions, the White House is breaking decades of precedent.”

“The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday that the Trump administration would start handpicking which media outlets were allowed to participate in the presidential pool, the small, rotating group of journalists who relay the president’s day-to-day activities to the public.

The change announced by Ms. Leavitt breaks decades of precedent. The White House Correspondents’ Association, a group representing journalists who cover the administration, has long determined on its own which reporters would participate in the daily pool.

“Because presidents often hold events in smaller settings like the Oval Office, where not every reporter who covers the president can fit, the pool format has long been used to ensure that journalists accurately record a president’s comments. The reporters who witness the events distribute a series of ‘pool reports’ to a wider group of journalists, including hundreds of news outlets that cover his daily activities and remarks.

  • The pool is most often made up of journalists from organizations like CNN, Reuters, The Associated Press, ABC News, Fox News and The New York Times.

Ms. Leavitt said that the new policy was intended to allow “new media” outlets — such as digital sites, streaming services and podcasts — “to share in this awesome responsibility.”

The White House Correspondents’ Association rebuked the move in a blistering statement.

“This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States,” Eugene Daniels, the president of the association, wrote. “It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president. In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps. . . .”

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5163291-white-house-press-pool-ap/

Send the Smelling Salts to the Post!

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Yona TR Golding, 2/24/25

Headline: “Spiking and Swooning at the Washington Post“

Subhead:  “What the paper’s killing of endorsements, ads, and cartoons has inadvertently revealed about our fragile Fourth Estate.”

“Earlier this month, Common Cause, a DC-based watchdog, submitted a proof copy of a “wraparound” advertisement meant to run on a Tuesday on the front and back pages of the Washington Post. The ad, later published on the organization’s X account, featured an image of Elon Musk against a red backdrop, eyes closed and grinning in apparent mirth, with an image of the White House aslant in the foreground. The main text of the ad read, ‘Who’s running this country: Donald Trump or Elon Musk?’ Below, in a smaller font, it continued: ‘Since day one, Elon Musk has created chaos and confusion and put our livelihoods at risk. And he is accountable to no one but himself.’ The ad ended with a tagline, ‘No One Elected Elon Musk,’ and a link: FireMusk.org.

“Common Cause, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund, which collaborated on the campaign, had a vision: that staffers in the White House, Pentagon, and congressional offices would receive a striking message along with their morning copy of the Post. Together with a full-page ad scheduled to run inside the paper on the same day, the wraparound was set to cost the organizations $115,000.

“It wasn’t to be. Three days after it submitted the proof, Common Cause received notice that the main ad would not be allowed to run, though a sales representative had previously indicated that the copy should not present a problem. In the end, though, ‘they said, ‘You can have something inside the paper but you can’t do the wrap,’ Virginia Kase Solomón, president of Common Cause, told The Hill. ‘We said ‘Thanks, no thanks,’ . . .”

“The Post has so far declined to clarify why the Common Cause ad wasn’t allowed to run, leading to widespread speculation that the decision may have had something to do with the will of Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of both Amazon and the Post, and his desire to make nice with Trump’s new administration. ‘Is Jeff Bezos more worried about an angry phone call from the White House than his paper’s journalistic duty?’  Common Cause asked . . . ”

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/spiking-swooning-washington-post-wapo-bezos-endorsement-ad-cartoon-kill.php

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Article in Common Cause by Staff, 2/24/25

Headline: “NEW: The Washington Post Censored Our #FireMusk Ad”

Subhead:  “The Washington Post – which has a responsibility to hold a magnifying glass up to powerful people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump – refused to run our ad calling them out.​”

https://www.commoncause.org/