In the latest shot fired between the White House and ?? ??? ??the press corps, the Trump administration reportedly blocked numerous mainstream media outlets from being in on Friday afternoon's scheduled press briefing.
CNN, the New York Times, BuzzFeed, the Los Angeles Times and Politico were all denied access to the small briefing known as a "gaggle"—an informal session that's on the record, but without cameras televising the event.
Those that were allowed to attend included NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox, as well as conservative outlets Breitbart, the Washington Times,and One America News Network.
The Associated Press and Time reportedly boycotted the briefing.
President Donald Trump has escalated his rhetoric against the media recently, calling the press "the enemy of the American people!" in a recent tweet.
The words have been enough to cause serious concern among politicians and journalist. Friday's briefing, however, showed a growing willingness to act on Trump's sentiment and begin to throttle White House access for publications that have reported negative stories about the president and his administration.
The move was roundly criticized. Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, said in a statement: "While we strongly object to the White House's apparent attempt to punish news outlets whose coverage it does not like, we won't let these latest antics distract us from continuing to cover this administration fairly and aggressively."
Jeff Mason, president of the White House Correspondents Association, said the organization will discuss the situation with White House staff.
"The WHCA board is protesting strongly against how today's gaggle is being handled by the White House," said Mason, who is also chief white house correspondent for Reuters.
CNN put out a statement as well:
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A White House communications official denied that the publications had been blocked.
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Dean Baquet, executive editor of the New York Times, also issued a statement to the paper for their report on the matter:
“Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties,” Baquet said in the statement. “We strongly protest the exclusion of The New York Times and the other news organizations. Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest.”
In a statement, the WSJ said its reporter was unaware of the move and would not have participated in the briefing if it had known other outlets were blocked.
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