July 5, 2022 (EIRNS)—“The administration’s continued efforts to limit access to the president cannot be defended,” said a letter sent by 72 journalists to the White House on June 30, in protest over the procedure by which hand-picked journalists are allowed to attend events with President Biden in the East Room. The White House has cited “spacing constraints” for excluding journalists from the 3,000-square-foot space. Under President Trump, East Room events were usually “open press,” meaning that any reporter with White House access could attend. Not so under Biden.
“We once again respectfully request the Biden administration—without exception—re-open all of the traditional venues for presidential remarks at the White House, including the East Room and the South Court Auditorium, for any reporter admitted to the White House campus,” the letter opens. “The current method of allowing a limited number of reporters into these events is not only restrictive and antithetical to the concept of a free press, but it has been done without any transparent process into how reporters are selected to cover these events.”
“For any reporter not in the ‘pool’ that covers the president, open press remarks represent the only time most of the reporters who cover the president might be positioned to ask him a question—or interact with him at all,” the letter continues. “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 incongruity of these restrictions underscores the belief by many reporters that the administration seeks to limit access to the president by anyone … who might ask a question the administration doesn’t want to answer.”
“Let us be candid. Our job is not to be liked, nor is it to be concerned about whether or not you like what we ask. A reporter’s ability to question the most powerful man in our government shouldn’t be discretionary…. Any notion that space is ‘limited’ is not supported by the fact that every other president before Biden (including Trump) allowed full access to the very same spaces without making us fill out a request form prior to admittance.”
Signers include reporters from CNN, CBS, Axios, Fox News, the New York Times, ABC, Newsmax, Al Jazeera, the New York Post, and Salon, as well as the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.