The Trump administration is taking steps to ensure a more inclusive White House press corps, a move that follows a controversial decision by the Biden administration to restrict access for hundreds of journalists. According to Fox News, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Tuesday that the White House will now play a role in determining which news outlets are part of the press pool, a responsibility traditionally held by the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA). Leavitt assured that "legacy outlets" would still be included but emphasized the importance of extending the "privilege" to "well-deserving outlets who have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility."
This decision comes after President Joe Biden's White House implemented new rules in 2023 that resulted in over 440 reporters losing their press credentials.
According to Fox News, “credentialed White House press members dropped from 1,417 members to 975 members after the White House unveiled new standards requiring an annual renewal of hard passes, Politico reported in 2023. Journalists without hard passes were still authorized to apply for day passes to the White House.”
The Biden White House policy, launched in May 2023, required reporters to prove employment with “an organization whose principal business is news dissemination" and show that they have "accessed the White House campus at least once during the prior six months for work, or have proof of employment within the last three months to cover the White House.”
While the Biden White House defended its decision by claiming that many journalists hadn't accessed the White House in the previous three months, critics saw it as a way to limit access for smaller, independent, or conservative-leaning outlets.
Leavitt stated in January that the Trump White House would work to "restore the press passes of the 440 journalists whose passes were wrongly revoked by the previous administration." On Tuesday, she reiterated that the goal is to "give the power back to the people" and ensure that "all journalists, outlets, and voices deserve a seat at this highly coveted table."
WHCA President Eugene Daniels complained that the WHCA did not receive an advanced notice of the White House’s decision, trying to argue that the move to bring back the 440 journalists dismissed by the Biden administration “tears at the independence of a free press in the United States.” Daniels added more highly suggestive inflammatory rhetoric stating that “in a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.”