A Note to Members

Press corps,

You may have heard that the WHCA is developing a Google list by which the print poolers can communicate with one other. I wanted to let you know directly what we’re working on.

Our goal here is to build a supplementary system for the print poolers so they can send out information directly to other reporters whenever they feel they need to, much as the TV and Radio poolers do now.

So we’ve built a Google list for print poolers and given them permission in our pool guidelines to send “advisories,” noting things like where the pool is holding, when they expect to send the next pool report, whether a correction might be forthcoming, and so on.

After a few months of this, we’ll evaluate how it’s going. If it’s working, the next step will be to widen distribution of these advisories to the larger press corps Google list that we are currently building.

The board agrees that every journalist who wants information from the print pooler should be able to get it — the same information as everyone else gets, delivered at the same time.

What is our motivation here? We simply want to have a back-up to the current system, in case of occasional breakdown, and to give poolers an alternative in emergencies when they feel they need to distribute information more quickly than going through the White House.

This measure should assure people of the independence that we believe exists already.

As we have been working on this project, some members of the press corps have asked if we’re looking to cut distribution of pool information to exclude those who don’t perform pool duty. Let me be clear – this supplementary system is NOT an attempt to cut anyone out.

Every journalist who wants the pool report and pool information is entitled to it, whether they can afford to staff the pools or not. It’s a privilege to provide the pool report and a right for every journalist to receive it. Some of our most persuasive advocates for access are people who can’t staff the pools. We value their contributions immensely.

People also ask about the costs of running this supplementary system. We think they’ll be minimal, but we don’t know for sure – just as we don’t know the unintended consequences of altering this complicated operation. We’ll learn as we go along.

Finally, here’s the question we hear most often: Is the WHCA hatching a plan to take over distribution of the pool reports, cutting the White House out of the operation?

The answer to that is “No.” As a group of very busy volunteers, we have our hands full staffing and organizing the pools as they are now. We think this supplementary system will achieve our goals without interrupting a crucial public service, even for a single day. Too many people depend on it. We won’t act rashly.

The White House will continue to distribute the pool reports to the thousands on the list. Our list is a supplement and a back-up.

The system has run for decades without failure and we respect the historic responsibility upon us to keep it going.

Let me know if you have questions.

Christi