Leavitt made her remarks during an Axios event hosted by co-founder Mike Allen, where she addressed criticism from the White House Correspondents Association about modifications to wire service positioning in the press pool. She contended that broadening participation among news outlets strengthened transparency and democratic principles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are thousands of outlets who have White House press credentials,\u201d Leavitt said. \u201cWhy should a single outlet have the privilege of being in that 13 person press pool every single day?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She characterized the changes as opening doors to more journalists and outlets rather than limiting coverage. \u201cWe\u2019ve actually ensured that more print outlets like Axios have a greater chance of being part of that 13 person press pool,\u201d Leavitt explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leavitt emphasized the administration\u2019s reasoning: \u201cIt\u2019s not about ideology. It\u2019s just about increasing the wide variety of outlets that have access.\u201d She noted the White House continues to credential outlets across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allen referenced a White House Correspondents Association statement asserting that government should not control independent media coverage. Leavitt rejected the premise, arguing that a small group of journalists should not dictate access to the Oval Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere should be equal access for all outlets,\u201d Leavitt said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The administration pointed to previous comparisons of presidential media engagement as context for its approach. A 2024 Axios analysis found that President Joe Biden had conducted 164 press conferences and interviews at a comparable point in his term, compared to Trump\u2019s 468 during his first term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leavitt noted that the Trump campaign ran an unconventional media strategy that contributed to his election victory. \u201cThe president ran a nontraditional media campaign, which propelled him back to the highest office in the land. And we felt it was our responsibility to continue that in our coverage at the White House,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Leavitt made her remarks during an Axios event hosted by co-founder Mike Allen, where she addressed criticism from the White House Correspondents Association about modifications to wire… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16127,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nykmedia.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nykmedia.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nykmedia.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nykmedia.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nykmedia.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nykmedia.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16132,"href":"https:\/\/nykmedia.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16131\/revisions\/16132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nykmedia.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nykmedia.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nykmedia.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nykmedia.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}