For 111 years, 19 presidents have wrestled with a free and independent press up close: the White House press corps—of which I am one.
We come to this job as competitors from different media outlets but work together to focus on the same goal: to report any and all things presidential.
For those 111 years, journalists reported without fear or favor and an adversarial relationship between presidents and reporters remained civil and intact.
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Until now.
In just eight weeks, President Donald Trump’s administration has gone far beyond calling the people who cover him close up the “enemy of the people.”
Trump has kicked respected media outlets like the Associated Press out of the press “pool” which covers him. The pool is the small group of journalists from print, TV and radio who represent the whole White House press corps—and by extension, the whole of America. It has always been chosen independently of the president.
Now Trump has hand-picked the group of reporters who go into the Oval Office or the Cabinet Room, or travel with him at home and abroad.
This presidential press pool change is not a minor issue. It is akin to state-run media in Russia and China where the leader expects the press to deliver favorable news on and about him and reporters ask questions that will not raise his ire.
We have already seen how this works, in two glaring incidents in just one day.
First a Russian reporter from TASS was spotted in the Oval Office press pool as Trump met with Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelensky. Complaints from the now-defunct traditional press pool occurred. The White House immediately pulled the Russian reporter from the Oval Office.
The White House essentially replaced the Associated Press with a Russian state TV reporter from TASS. The White House says TASS was not on the approved list for the hand-picked pool. So how did they get into the meeting?
Then a presidentially hand-picked reporter—who is close to Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—played a part in the tag team effort to insult the wartime president of Ukraine. That reporter asked why Zelensky was not wearing a suit in the Oval Office.
Real press accountability is a pillar of this nation. The founding fathers created three branches of government as checks and balances.
When the checking and balancing did not work, questioning by the press led to accountability.
People now desperately need answers on the possibility of a recession, crashes in the stock market, massive federal firings, deadly air traffic issues, the closure of the Department of Education, diseases and viruses on the rise and international upheaval.
Instead, the White House is gloating—and mocking the idea of accountability.
This week the White House Correspondents Association met off the record to discuss how to fight for the people’s rights.
Our conversation was taped and leaked to a White House official who went on the platform formerly known as Twitter to try to rub the mockery in our faces.
“One WHCA member even demanded a meeting with POTUS to air grievances,” he posted.
For full transparency, I was that reporter.
We reporters wanted to get to the president so he can understand the detrimental impact of this. What better way to explain this impact by talking directly to him?
In this fight, the American public is the loser.
There is an irony to this: The White House Correspondents Association was formed in 1914 because of a rumor that a Congressional committee was going to select which journalists could attend Woodrow Wilson’s press conferences.
Now it’s a president picking journalists.
Both lawyers and my fellow journalists are working on this.
As for me, I will not stop asking questions—and to be part of the pool—for the sake of the American public.
April Ryan is the Washington Bureau Chief and White House Correspondent for Black Press USA. Ryan is also the longest-serving Black White House Correspondent in history.
