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he White House reportedly has plans to take over the seating chart in the briefing room, a power once held by the far-left White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA). Currently, the seating arrangement is controlled by the WHCA, and conservative outlets like The Gateway Pundit, One America News Network, and Real America’s Voice are pushed to the sides of the room where we can only hope to catch the press secretary’s eye for a question. As The Gateway Pundit reported, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced last month that the WHCA will no longer hold its iron grip over deciding...

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Tuesday that the White House would now determine which reporters make up the press 'pool' - the group of journalists allowed into tight spaces like the Oval Office and Air Force One. Pool assignments had been in the hands of the White House Correspondents' Association - a membership organization for White House journalists from an array of outlets - to keep the White House from gatekeeping access.

"...Driver was not allowed onto club property so a White House staffer drove the van instead. White House staff said all drivers were replaced after the incident. When press loaded back into vans, driver was being questioned by an officer..."

Paul Farhi of The Washington Post writes today about a trend at the White House—and throughout journalism—that threatens the quality and credibility of news-gathering: Public-relations "minders" are injecting themselves into our interviews with politicians, CEOs, and other policymakers. Minder madness joins the surge of "background briefings" and the decline of access to decision-makers as evidence that the White House—and other big instititutions—are manipulating the press. It's that, but it's also something worse: It's evidence that journalists are ceding control when they should be seizing it, accepting canned news rather than breaking it. Farhi writes, "Almost every officially sanctioned exchange between...

...Update 2:55 p.m. from Amie Parnes of the Hill: Travel pool was separated for about 20 minutes from the motorcade en route to the next stop at a private residence. This separation resulted in a high speed, wild goose chase weaving through the streets of San Antonio. Led by a police escort, your pool was led up wrong way streets, driving on the shoulder of highways, and so on. Finally, after cars were literally pushed off the highway by the police escort and the three White House pool vans, we had interstate 10 ourselves at a speed of about 85...

President Obama again left the White House without some of the reporters assigned to travel everywhere with him. The White House abruptly changed the call time for media to assemble to 8:15 AM this morning, and informed them of this change at 8:16 AM. As a result, Obama left the White House without a handful of the journalists assigned to write dispatches and reports to other reporters. The president traditionally travels with members of the White House press corps at all times.

One shouldn’t underestimate the significance of the pushback by the members of the White House news pool over the exclusion of Fox News from the interview process with pay czar Kenneth Feinberg. The unanimous decision of members of the pool (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CNN) to refuse any interviews without Fox’s presence had the White House quickly and dramatically reversing course... That the pliable media, so long in the bag for Obama, saw a bigger issue: the freedom of the press. And they stood firm.... All of this was not only to marginalize Fox, but to set the stage...

In the section of John F. Kerry's campaign plane reserved for members of the news media, calendar pages marking the days until the Nov. 2 election hang from a prominent spot on a bulkhead wall. A date on one of the pages, Aug. 9, is circled several times in dark ink. Above it, someone has written the words "Last Press Avail!!!" It is a pointed, if silent, comment from the media pack that follows Kerry on the campaign trail. Despite a growing press presence as the election nears, Kerry's direct contacts with his media entourage have dwindled. The Democratic presidential...

Media Matters December 3, 2003 How the White House Fooled NPR By Jeffrey A. Dvorkin Ombudsman National Public Radio While most journalists were enjoying a few days respite over Thanksgiving, the White House managed to stage an impressive photo-op with the president in Baghdad. Astonishingly, it occurred without the usual presence of the White House press corps. More astonishing was the lamb-like response of many in the media to the White House sleight-of-hand. Collusion seemed to be the order of the day, as reporters were assured that the usual "pool coverage" of the president would be in force over the...

When President Bush landed in Iraq for Thanksgiving dinner, Fox News was there, but CNN was not. When the president travels, the White House uses a rotating system for a pool that includes newspaper, wire-service and television reporters, but news executives were not sure Thursday whether the standard procedures had been followed, according to a story in the Washington Post. The 13 pool correspondents summoned for the trip included Jim Angle of Fox News, Terence Hunt of the Associated Press, Mike Allen of The Washington Post, Richard Keil of Bloomberg News, a Reuters reporter and photographers from Time, Newsweek and...