By Elle Purnell | Commentary, The Federalist
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.