The White House press corps has had it with the way the Biden administration limits press events and is asking Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to "re-open all of the traditional venues for presidential remarks at the White House."
The 68 journalists call the limited number of reporters allowed into events "restrictive and antithetical to the concept of a free press." They also criticized how there's been no transparency about the White House's selection process in choosing which reporters cover events.
"The continued inability of the White House to be candid and transparent about the selection process for reporters attending his remarks undermines President Biden's credibility when he says he is a defender of the First Amendment," the letter states.
"The incongruity of these restrictions underscores the belief by many reporters that the administration seeks to limit access to the president by anyone outside of the pool, or anyone who might ask a question the administration doesn't want to answer," the journalists write.
Members of the press ought to have full access to Biden, and they state there's no defending what has been taking place since every one of his predecessors has "allowed full access to the very same spaces without making us fill out a request form prior to admittance."
They ask Jean-Pierre to immediately remedy the situation.
As the New York Post reports, some of the biggest names in the industry signed the letter.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, CBS’s Ed O’Keefe and Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich and Kevin Corke signed the letter, as did legendary former ABC anchor and White House reporter Sam Donaldson, TheGrio’s April Ryan, Newsmax’s James Rosen, Gray Television’s Jon Decker and Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett.
The letter was drafted by veteran journalist Brian Karem, who writes for Salon. The second signature was from CBS News Radio’s Steven Portnoy, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, which privately lobbied against the practice for months. A reporter for The Post signed third and helped circulate the document.
Two other correspondents’ association board members — Todd GIllman of The Dallas Morning News and Francesca Chambers of USA Today — signed, as did past presidents of the association Tom DeFrank and George Condon, both of National Journal, and all five candidates in this year’s association election, including Eugene Daniels of Politico and Sara Cook of CBS.
In all, reporters assigned to more than half of the seats in the White House briefing room signed the letter.
High-profile journalists who reported on the Trump administration — including Jonathan Swan of Axios and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times — signed, as did journalists with decades of experience in the West Wing, such as Peter Baker of the Times, Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times and John Gizzi of Newsmax, as well as DeFrank and Condon. (NY Post)
Many wondered what took so long.
It took them 17 months but they are now … writing a letter. https://t.co/bQPARIindo
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) July 1, 2022
Why was it cool for the first 16 months of his presidency, @WHCA? https://t.co/ru3QRD6E00
— Derek Hunter (@derekahunter) July 1, 2022
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