White House says ending reporter prescreening for Biden events is ‘priority’
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisted Tuesday that it was “a priority” to reopen large presidential events to all reporters — after 73 journalists signed a letter last week demanding an end to a mysterious prescreening process.
The administration has secretly screened journalists let into Biden’s large indoor events for more than a year since the briefing room returned to full capacity in early June 2021, spurring concern among reporters that Biden handlers are setting a precedent that could permanently and subjectively curb access to venues that once were open to all.
“We’re coming into a different, a different place of COVID — right? Things are starting to open up,” Jean-Pierre said in response to a briefing question from Brian Karem, the veteran reporter who wrote the protest letter.
Jean-Pierre noted that the White House this year relaunched public tours and recently hosted massive events — but pointedly refused to give specifics on when the full press corps might again be allowed back into the same spaces for Biden events, where the president often takes questions.
“We’re even doing tours here. We had 7,000 people out in the South Lawn yesterday — military families and others to celebrate the Fourth of July, which was a a wonderful event. It was great to have, to see our military families out there,” Jean-Pierre said.
“And so we understand. We want to make, we want to be accessible. We want the president to be — his events to be accessible and we are working to that, with the understanding that we have been working through, as we look at his events, during this pandemic and we’re trying to we’re trying to see —”
Karem followed up, asking if Jean-Pierre was committing to reopening large venues such as the East Room that for decades have been accessible to all journalists present on White House grounds.
“I’m not saying that, I’m just saying that we’re willing to work with you on this and this is also a priority of ours,” she said.
The White House Correspondents’ Association has for more than a year tried to demystify the selection process for Biden’s indoor events, while also arguing for the practice to be scrapped.
Despite prolonged effort, the Correspondents’ Association has been unable to make progress on learning the criteria for invitation to Biden’s events.
The association’s president, Steven Portnoy of CBS News Radio, was the second reporter to sign the protest letter in a nod of support that inspired many others to sign on to the rare public airing of grievances.
Jean-Pierre said at a June briefing “I actually don’t know” how the selection process works, but denied it amounted to “blacklisting” of certain outlets or reporters.
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki in October also declined to share the criteria, saying at a briefing, “I don’t have any more information on that.”
“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,” the protest letter says.
“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,” it continues.
“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 asked.”
“Let us be candid,” the letter goes on. “Our job is not to be liked, nor is it to be concerned about whether or not you like what we ask. Reporters’ ability to question the most powerful man in our government shouldn’t be discretionary.”
“The administration’s continued efforts to limit access to the president cannot be defended,” it adds. “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.”
The letter concludes, “Thank you for your attention to these ahistorical problems. We ask you to see to it that the protocols are changed back to the access norms to which we are accustomed.”
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.
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.
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.
DeFrank said he signed the letter in an effort to help maintain historical press access to large events with the president.
“Having covered the White House since June of 1968 as a Newsweek intern,” he said, “I’ve seen a troubling erosion in access that was once routine.”
