Several major American news organisations were on Friday afternoon barred from a White House press briefing in an unprecedented move by the Trump administration.
Reporters from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN and Politico were all refused access to an off-camera press briefing by Sean Spicer, President Donald Trump’s press secretary.
They were refused entry to Mr Spicer’s West Wing office for the scheduled briefing.
“Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties,” said Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times.
“We strongly protest the exclusion of The New York Times and the other news organisations. Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest.”
Only reporters from selected organisations, which included Breitbart News, the One America News Network and The Washington Times – all extremely conservative news organisations – were allowed to hear what Mr Spicer said. Breitbart’s founder, Steve Bannon, is Mr Trump’s chief strategist.
Reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press chose not to attend the briefing, which is called as a gaggle and is less formal than a televised briefing in the White House press room, in solidarity. The television networks NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox News all attended.
The White House Correspondents Association said it was “protesting strongly” against the move.
Sarah Sanders, a spokesman for Mr Trump, defended the move by stating the White House “had the pool there so everyone would be represented and get an update from us today”.
In a speech earlier in the day at the Conservative Political Action Conference Mr Trump had railed against the media. He slammed what he called purveyors of “fake news” and sought to clarify a recent tweet in which he said some in the US news media should be considered an “enemy of the people”.
“I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be out there,” Mr Trump said. “Let there be no more sources.”
