White House press corps

The White House press corps is the group of journalists, correspondents, and members of the media usually assigned to the White House in Washington, D.C., to cover the government administration of the president of the United States, White House events, and news briefings. Its offices are located in the West Wing.

Overview

Photographers and videographers in the Oval Office in 2019
Semi-permanent setup of press corps on the west end of the north White House lawn, from where live media broadcasts with the White House are typically delivered

The White House press secretary, or a deputy, generally holds a weekday news briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, which currently seats 49 reporters. Each seat is assigned to a news gathering organization, with the most prominent organizations occupying the first two rows. Reporters who do not have an assigned seat may stand. Often a smaller group of reporters known as the "press pool" is assembled to report back to their colleagues on events where the venue would make open coverage logistically difficult. There can be different pools assembled on any given day to include a pool covering the president, vice president, first lady, and other prominent members of the staff.

When a new U.S. president is elected, some news organizations change their correspondents, most often to the reporter who had been assigned to cover the new president during the preceding campaign. For example, after the 2020 United States presidential election, Peter Doocy, Fox News' lead campaign reporter during the two years that Joe Biden campaigned for president, moved on to be the chief White House correspondent for the cable news channel, replacing John Roberts, who had been chief correspondent during the first presidency of Donald Trump.

History

The White House press corps had their first duties in the White House in the early 1900s. An urban legend exists of President Theodore Roosevelt noticing a group of correspondents in the rain looking for sources for their stories and inviting them into the White House. Subsequent historical research outlines how reporters were able to start with small stories in the White House and then grew their presence and influence over a span of many years.

In 1977, a court ruled in Sherrill v. Knight that the White House had a limited right to deny a press pass.

Presidencies of Donald Trump

In 2018, during the first presidency of Donald Trump, the White House withdrew the pass of Jim Acosta of CNN. CNN sued, and a federal judge temporarily ordered the pass to be restored, on grounds of due process. In May 2019, under a new standard, the White House revoked dozens of press passes.

In February 2025, during the second presidency of Donald Trump, the White House announced that it would determine which outlets are allowed access to the president, instead of the White House Correspondents' Association.

On September 18, 2026, Trump announced that he was banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House, effective immediately. The following Monday, the three news outlets filed a lawsuit in the D.C. district court, seeking a temporary restraining order to lift the ban. The same day, the five members of the primary White House television pool - Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN - issued a statement announcing that they were suspending coverage of the president. In solidarity, several major papers—including The New York Times and The Washington Post—agreed to hold off publishing or distributing still photos taken as part of the White House pool coverage on Monday, delaying release until midnight. Several other outlets with photographers in the White House pool—among them The Associated Press, Reuters, Getty Images, and Agence France-Presse—likewise agreed to withhold images from Trump's events until midnight.

On September 22, the Department of Justice defended the administration's action in a court filing, citing national security concerns and alleged violations of standards of professionalism and decorum.

Notable correspondents

The White House Correspondents' Association organizes the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room seating chart. Several outlets have had reporters covering the White House full-time and a permanent assigned seat in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room.

See also

References

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