For more than one hundred years, the White House Correspondents’ Association has been in control of the press pool, choosing which journalists get to be in the White House; now this system is being thrown out in favor of the White House choosing the journalists who get to be there.

Since 1914, the White House Correspondents’ Association has chosen the country’s best journalists to be put in the White House on a rotation so each outlet would get the same information. There is a system in place in the “press pool” so the journalists are chosen fairly, and the current president is not a factor in this decision. The journalists present for press conferences and briefings are responsible for sharing their information with other reporters in the press pool, ensuring everyone has the information they need.

On February 25th, President Donald Trump and his subsequent administration announced their decision to control the press pool. The administration is now going to hand-select which journalists are allowed to be in these conferences and briefings. Many people are seeing this as a threat to democracy, the First Amendment, and free speech as a whole. It is believed that the White House is only going to work with journalists and news networks that align with Trump’s beliefs.

This all stems from an incident with Karoline Leavitt. Leavitt is the current White House press secretary. In her words, from February 25th, “Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team. Legacy outlets who have participated in the press pool for decades will still be allowed to join, fear not. But we will also be offering the privilege to well-deserving outlets who have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility”.

This opens the possibility that most correspondence between the White House and journalists will become very biased.

There is the fear that the White House will only work with outlets that they know aren’t going to ask stressful or tough questions, they might want the appearance that there is nothing to stress about; that all is well and there are no negatives caused from this administration.

Not to mention, the current pool already accounts for up and coming news outlets and reporters, and that is not something the White House has ever been concerned about in previous administrations. It seems that the current administration might be threatened by the press who are in the current rotation, and they want to use their power to control what is going to be said about them and their current dealings.

This change has already gone into effect, before it was even announced. The Associated Press was kicked out of the pool for refusing to comply with calling the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”, as insisted by Trump and Leavitt. The AP has now been barred from the future majority of White House events, effectively silencing them from reporting on these briefings in a timely manner, forcing them to rely on accounts that will likely no longer be first hand.

Trump has been quoted saying “We’re going to be now calling those shots” at an oval office event after the banning of AP from being there. This is a major issue when it comes to free press. Only hearing what the White House wants people to hear is not going to give everyone accurate information to make informed decisions about the policies being put in place.

The White House taking over the press pool is just adding to pre-existing issues. So much information from the news and journalists is paywalled, and now the information that is going to be direct from journalists in the White House is going to likely be based on one opinion, the opinion of the current president. The information coming from the press visiting the White House should not be endorsed by the White House. There is a clear conflict of interest. It is not best for the American people to only get information that is spoon-fed by the government itself.

The public deserves independent information, not skewed or endorsed by any political group, and the White House taking control of the press pool threatens and endangers this right. There is already the issue of things such as paywalls, and now the information that is hidden might not even be accurate and unbiased.

People have the right to form their opinions, and that can only be done accurately when the news itself is unbiased and accurate, independent of being written for political gain. The White House taking control of who is allowed to report its events and briefings is a step in the wrong direction and is a direct threat to free press and conflicts with the First Amendment.