White House Press Establishment Fears Loss of Power

Elle Purnell writes for the Federalist about complaints from the White House’s legacy media outlets.

During all the meltdowns about Donald Trump’s election being a “threat to democracy,” someone observantly noted that all the panic made sense once you replaced the word “democracy” with “bureaucracy.” Now, as D.C. journo types panic about the threat to a “free press” posed by Trump’s breakup of the White House Correspondents’ Association monopoly, replacing “free press” with “corporate media’s control of news narratives” provides similar clarity.

On Tuesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the White House would have the final say on which reporters have access to President Trump in the “most intimate spaces” such as the Oval Office as part of the 13-member press pool. Gatekeeping this access was previously the purview of the group of “D.C.-based journalists” who make up the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA).

“Legacy media outlets,” including “the five major television networks,” would still be included in the rotation, Leavitt clarified, but so would outlets that have “long been denied the privilege” of close access to the president.

In response, the WHCA — led by the manicured (and often, for some reason, caped) Eugene Daniels of Politico — released a four-paragraph statement claiming the decision “tears at the independence of a free press in the United States.” …

… The media are pearl-clutching about a “free press” because it’s not as empathy-inducing to say, “Donald Trump is a threat to the legacy media cartel’s monopoly over The Narrative.” But that’s exactly what they’re afraid of losing, and why they’re so offended that the Trump administration would stop them from gatekeeping White House access and boxing out alternative media.

Outlets with longstanding privileges like the AP or The New York Times have enjoyed being able to use their power to go after political enemies without fear of repercussions.

The post White House Press Establishment Fears Loss of Power first appeared on John Locke Foundation.