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The Crackdown on the Press
The White House just changed 100 years of press access
I’ve been waiting for this. The White House Press Secretary just announced that they would choose who gets to cover the President in the White House, ending the tradition of the White House Correspondents organization choosing those who can attend the limited space in person.
And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox broadcaster, took a Fox News correspondent with him on a trip to Guantanamo, without inviting any other journalists.
It’s obvious that they will limit coverage to those who Trump views as loyal, yet another blatant politicalization of a function critical to keeping the operations of the Executive Branch open and transparent. Their messaging is out of control. They’ve been bungling practically everything, contradicting each other, and often simply refusing to answer direct questions, in part because of those contradictory statements coming from DOGE and various Cabinet Secretaries.
I’ve talked about how they have been generating clouds of chaos and confusion intentionally as cover for what they are doing. That, combined with sheer incompetence, means that simply finding the reality has been extremely challenging, even for experienced journalists. Now those journalists who ask the hard questions will be banned…
