The White House Correspondents’ Association welcomes today’s ruling, in which a federal judge made it clear that the White House cannot arbitrarily revoke a White House press pass. We thank all of the news outlets and individual reporters who stood up in recent days for the vital role a free and independent news media plays in our republic.
The White House Correspondents’ Association strongly supports CNN’s goal of seeing their correspondent regain a US Secret Service security credential that the White House should not have taken away in the first place. Revoking access to the White House complex amounted to disproportionate reaction to the events of last Wednesday. We continue to urge the Administration to reverse course and fully reinstate CNN’s correspondent.
The President of the United States should not be in the business of arbitrarily picking the men and women who cover him.
All Americans should recoil from the president’s praise for a violent assault on a reporter doing his Constitutionally protected job. This amounts to the celebration of a crime by someone sworn to uphold our laws and an attack on the First Amendment by someone who has solemnly pledged to defend it. We should never shrug at the president cheerleading for a violent act targeting a free and independent news media.
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
By now, you’ve seen the photograph from the Trump rally yesterday that shows an aide with his hand over a photographer’s lens, an attempt to prevent our colleague from getting a picture of a protester at the event.
I have spoken to both the White House and the Trump campaign. The White House referred me to the campaign.
The Trump campaign assures me that these were the actions of an inexperienced volunteer, who understands that he acted in error. The campaign has taken him off the road, and promises that this will not happen again.
Thanks to those of you who brought this to my attention last night. Please feel free to reach out to me and your other Board members anytime you run into a problem.
Best,
Olivier
We strongly condemn the White House’s misguided and inappropriate decision today to bar one of our members from an open press event after she asked questions they did not like. This type of retaliation is wholly inappropriate, wrong-headed, and weak. It cannot stand. Reporters asking questions of powerful government officials, up to and including the President, helps hold those people accountable. In our republic, the WHCA supports the prerogative of all reporters to do their jobs without fear of reprisal from the government. — WHCA President Olivier Knox
Full pool coverage of the president in cases in which open press coverage is not possible has been a longstanding agreement between the White House and the press corps and the default position that the WHCA expected and advocated ahead of the summit. The White House’s decision not to protect that standard for some key pools during the summit showed in the news coverage, with reporters and networks struggling to precisely determine what President Trump and Kim Jong Un said after the White House did not allow a properly-constituted pool in the room.
WHCA repeatedly shared our members’ opposition to any moves to arbitrarily restrict pools for perhaps the most important foreign policy meeting of this presidency. While there were some full pool sprays, restrictions were placed on other pools including the bilateral and expanded bilateral meetings and an event in which the president addressed a supplementary tv camera with no editorial presence. Even as we were pleased to see a return to the tradition of an open press presidential news conference on overseas trips, our members are strongly opposed to any erosion of the standard for pools and deeply concerned about the impact that would have on the American public.
Margaret Talev, WHCA President
Some may excuse the president’s inflammatory rhetoric about the media, but just because the president does not like news coverage does not make it fake. A free press must be able to report on the good, the bad, the momentous and the mundane, without fear or favor. And a president preventing a free and independent press from covering the workings of our republic would be an unconscionable assault on the First Amendment.
-Margaret Talev, WHCA President
The 2018 WHCA scholars were hosted at the White House Friday April 27 by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump praised the group as “the future” of journalism, branding it a “great profession,” as they posed for a group photo at the South Portico of the White House.
The White House press pool was in attendance for the meeting.
The White House Correspondents’ Association and the University of Maryland are pleased to announce the creation of a unique new window into the world of the president and the press — a permanent and ongoing digital, searchable archive of presidential pool reports produced by White House correspondents.
The White House Correspondents’ Association Pool Reports Collection will be kept at the university and available online. It will consist of the reports written every day by members of the White House press corps on the activities of the president.
“This collection will be of invaluable help to scholars far and wide. A grand slam idea,” said Douglas Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University and CNN presidential historian.
The presidential pool reports are produced by journalists who are part of a small group that covers the president — in the White House, at events, in the motorcade and on Air Force One — when it is not possible for the entire press corps to be present. Their written pool reports are disseminated to the rest of the press corps, once on paper, now digitally.
“The WHCA release of pool reports provides a valuable window into presidential history,” said Robert Dallek, a presidential historian and biographer. “These are the kind of contemporary materials that are treasured by historians.”
“This collection of pool reports will be an essential tool to historians of modern American politics,” said Julian E. Zelizer, the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Zelizer is also a CNN political analyst and co-host of “Politics and Polls.”
“It will also provide an important, archivally based window into relationship between the presidents and the press, a subject that is gaining more attention in recent years,” he said.
The collection will be produced through a partnership including the WHCA, the University of Maryland — including the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, the University Libraries and the College of Information Studies — and the Newseum Institute.
“WHCA is proud to launch this historically significant project with our host, the University of Maryland,” said Margaret Talev, the president of the association and Senior White House Correspondent for Bloomberg. “We thank the many journalists, historians and academics at institutions throughout the country for their input in furnishing the raw work and the vision for how this resource can serve the public. It’s a massive undertaking and we welcome support from organizations and individuals that would like to get involved.”
The WHCA sought to create the collection as part of its mission to ensure a strong free press and robust coverage of the presidency. At the same time, the partnership will develop educational and scholarly programs and publications based on the collection and presidential access and coverage.
“The University of Maryland is honored to have the opportunity to steward this valuable archive and research tool, a unique record of the U.S. presidency,” said Lucy A. Dalglish, dean of the Merrill College. “We’re proud to make it available to the public and to scholars around the world.”
The collection will complement materials at the University of Maryland Libraries that document the history of radio and television broadcasting, including the Library of American Broadcasting and the National Public Broadcasting Archives.
“Archiving information and making it publicly available is not only essential to accessibility and transparency in current times, but also to the accuracy of how events are remembered in the future,” said Keith Marzullo, dean of the College of Information Studies.
Dalglish said a kickoff event is scheduled for Oct. 9 at the Newseum, where guests — including current and former White House correspondents — will be invited to celebrate the collection and share old pool reports in their possession, “whether they’re stored digitally or in boxes in basements.”
Work will begin this year and the archive is expected to be stood up over the next two years.
Gene Policinski, president and chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute, said the Newseum is honored to partner in preserving the reports.
“Journalism is known as a ‘first draft of history,’” Policinski said. “This WHCA material is literally the first drafts of such first drafts.”
About the WHCA:
The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) represents the hundreds of journalists who cover the White House. Its mission is to ensure a strong free press and robust coverage of the presidency by advocating for access to the president, White House events and administration officials. We also work to encourage new generations of White House correspondents through our college scholarship program.
About the University of Maryland:
The University of Maryland, College Park is the state’s flagship university and one of the nation’s preeminent public research universities. A global leader in research, entrepreneurship and innovation, the university is home to more than 40,000 students, 10,000 faculty and staff, and 280 academic programs. Its faculty includes two Nobel laureates, three Pulitzer Prize winners, 60 members of the national academies and scores of Fulbright scholars. The institution has a $1.9 billion operating budget and secures $514 million annually in external research funding. For more information about the University of Maryland, College Park, visit http://www.umd.edu/.
About the Newseum Institute:
The Newseum Institute, headquartered in Washington, is the education and outreach partner of the Freedom Forum and the Newseum. The Institute includes the First Amendment Center, the Religious Freedom Center and NewseumED, an online learning platform for teachers and students. The Institute regularly hosts compelling programs that engage in the central debates of our time, including the role of a free press in a democracy, ongoing threats to journalists, and the significance of religious freedom in a pluralistic society.
April 5 2018
The White House Correspondents’ Association is pleased to announce that comedian Michelle Wolf will be the entertainer at the WHCA’s annual dinner on Saturday, April 28, 2018. Wolf is the host of a newly announced show on Netflix, which comes on the heels of her highly reviewed HBO special. She is also known for her acclaimed work as a contributor on Comedy Central’s Daily Show With Trevor Noah.
“I’m delighted to announce ‘Nice Lady’ Michelle Wolf as our featured entertainer this year,” said Margaret Talev, president of the WHCA. “Our dinner honors the First Amendment and strong, independent journalism. Her embrace of these values and her truth-to-power style make her a great friend to the WHCA. Her Pennsylvania roots, stints on Wall Street and in science and self-made, feminist edge make her the right voice now.”
Wolf most recently premiered her hour-long HBO special, “Michelle Wolf: Nice Lady” and Netflix recently announced that she will star in a new weekly half-hour comedy show later this year. Prior to that, Wolf worked as an on-air contributor and writer for The Daily Show With Trevor Noah on Comedy Central.
The Association, founded in 1914 to represent the White House press corps, works to maintain independent news media coverage of the president, advocating for access, handling logistics for pools of reporters who stay close to the president and those who travel with him, and providing scholarships to journalism students.
The annual dinner is traditionally attended by the President and First Lady as well as many other senior government officials and members of the press corps. Proceeds from the dinner support the association’s year-round work as well as scholarships for aspiring journalists and awards recognizing excellence in the profession.