WASHINGTON: The White House excluded several major US news organisations, including some it has criticised, from an off-camera briefing held by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.
Reporters for CNN, The New York Times, Politico, The Los Angeles Times and BuzzFeed were not allowed into the session.
Spicer’s off-camera briefing, or “gaggle,” replaced the usual televised daily news briefing in the White House briefing room. He did not say why those particular news organisations were excluded, a decision which drew strong protests.
A foreign media agency was included in the session, along with about 10 other news organisations, including Bloomberg and CBS.
President Donald Trump has regularly attacked the media and at a gathering of conservative activists on Friday he criticised news organisations that he said provide “fake news”, calling them the “enemy” of the American people.
Spicer said his team decided to have a gaggle in his office on Friday instead of a full briefing in the larger White House briefing room and argued that “we don’t need to do everything on camera every day.”
Reporters at another media agency and Time magazine walked out of the briefing when hearing that others had been barred from the session.
Off-camera gaggles are not unusual. The White House often invites handpicked outlets in for briefings, typically for specific topics. But briefings and gaggles in the White House are usually open to all outlets and they are free to ask anything.
A pool reporter from Hearst Newspapers was included in the gaggle on Friday and gave full details to the entire press corps. Media outlets allowed into the gaggle also shared their audio with others.
