What Is the White House Press Pool, and Why Is Trump Seizing Control of It?

The White House announced on Tuesday that it was seizing control of the press pool covering President Trump, becoming the first administration in decades to insist that it will decide which news organizations, and which reporters, are allowed to be close enough to question the president in places like the Oval Office and Air Force One.

On Wednesday night, Eugene Daniels, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, responded by announcing that the group’s board of directors, which represents news organizations that cover the president, would no longer distribute pool reports from the White House’s chosen correspondents.

“This board will not assist any attempt by this administration or any other in taking over independent press coverage of the White House,” wrote Mr. Daniels, who is also a reporter for Politico. “This move from the White House threatens the independence of a free press in the United States. It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president.”

The move by the White House, and the response from the correspondents’ association, raises questions: What is the press pool? Why does it exist? Why is this different from what has happened in the past?

The White House press pool was created during President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s term to solve a practical problem: When the president makes news on the road or at the White House, which of the hundreds of White House correspondents get to be there?

The answer, developed through cooperation between news organizations and presidential administrations of both parties, was the creation of a small group of correspondents, TV cameras and photographers who would be the eyes and ears of the broader White House press corps in those small settings.

The arrangement works like this: The White House agreed to let a group of reporters be with the president in those locations, while the choice of which correspondents were in the group was left to the White House Correspondents’ Association. The W.H.C.A., created in 1914, is an independent group whose members are accredited to cover the president.

The composition of the pool has changed over time, but it currently includes three wire service reporters; two print or online reporters; a radio reporter; four photographers; and a television crew, including a producer, an audio technician and a camera operator.

For decades, the correspondents’ association and news organizations have decided which of their journalists to rotate into those slots, in part to ensure that the White House, regardless of party, did not have the ability to select only “friendly” outlets that could ask questions of the president.

Once that is decided, the names are communicated to the White House, which helps arrange the logistics required to grant access to the Oval Office, Air Force One or other secured areas.

What does the White House want to change?

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday that the White House would decide who rotated into the pool slots, not the correspondents’ association. That allows the Trump administration to handpick which journalists relay the president’s activities to the public.

“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.”

The change comes at a moment when the White House is chipping away at the ability of major news organizations to cover it. Mr. Trump’s press staff had already kicked The Associated Press out of the pool for refusing to abide by the president’s demand to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

The A.P. has been kicked off Air Force One, as well.

On Wednesday, the administration announced that a television crew from Newsmax, a conservative network, and correspondents from The Blaze and Axios would be part of the pool at the White House. The administration said that The A.P. would continue to be barred from the pool and that Reuters would also not be allowed to participate.

It is not clear which news organizations will be allowed to join Mr. Trump during an expected trip to Florida over the weekend.

What do members of the pool actually do?

The pool reporter sends out a pool report documenting the president’s remarks, movements and actions for the rest of the press corps. In 2003, Mike Allen, then a Washington Post reporter, was the pool reporter on Air Force One during President George W. Bush’s secret trip to Baghdad. Mr. Allen later documented the takeoff:

“8:25 p.m. Air Force One was rolling. 8:27 p.m. Air Force One was airborne. Journalists peeked out the shades and saw that the plane had on none of the running lights that are customarily visible, including the red or green ones on the wings. The movie ‘Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines’ had begun playing in the press cabin. 8:45 p.m. The plane seemed to be going unusually fast.”

Pool reports have documented historical presidential moments. In 2023, a Wall Street Journal reporter, Sabrina Siddiqui, traveled secretly with President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to Ukraine’s war-torn capital. As the pool reporter, she delivered numerous reports documenting the president’s travel and meetings in Ukraine.

“Due to security concerns, pool has agreed not to share real-time updates on the president’s movements. Full details of how he got here and methods of transportation are also being held until the president is safely out of the country.”

In addition to covering remarks and actions by the president in small spaces, news organizations and the White House have historically agreed to have a “protective pool” to ensure that the public receives timely information about the president’s health and safety.

To that end, a press pool travels wherever the president goes in vans that are part of the presidential motorcade. If the president travels to the U.S. Capitol in his motorcade, the press pool will accompany him. When the president travels in his motorcade through the streets of Moscow or Istanbul, the press goes along. If the president plays golf for several hours, the press pool will wait nearby — sometimes in the vans — to ensure it can report quickly if something happens to the president.

The need for the protective pool has been proved repeatedly over the decades. An unofficial pool of campaign reporters was with Mr. Trump during the 2024 campaign when he was shot during a Pennsylvania rally. In 1981, the pool was with President Ronald Reagan during an assassination attempt at the Washington Hilton. Judy Woodruff was in the protective pool that day as a reporter for PBS.

Who does the White House want in the pool?

The White House has not specified exactly, but Ms. Leavitt has said she wants to increase access for podcasters, social media influencers and other creators of “news-related content.”

In recent weeks, the administration has moved to increase access for partisan figures who are sympathetic to the administration, such as the podcast host Sage Steele and Brian Glenn of the Right Side Broadcasting Network.

Many news organizations are interested in being part of the pool, which gives reporters an up-close view of the president’s actions and the chance to ask the president questions. But until now, only members of the correspondents’ association could be part of the pool.

The association’s membership is broad and amounts to several hundred correspondents. To gain full membership, correspondents must first acquire a Capitol Hill press credential, live in the area and cover the White House full time.

“The W.H.C.A. reserves membership for outlets that have demonstrated commitment to the beat and to high-quality, fact-driven journalism,” the association says on its website.

One of the biggest roadblocks to participation in the press pool is the cost.

Whenever a reporter boards Air Force One or travels in the president’s motorcade, the cost of that travel is billed to the news organizations. Taxpayers do not pay for the media’s expenses. Hotels, food, internet and ground-based transportation are all billed back to the news organizations as well.

That can get costly. Traveling with the president on short, domestic trips can cost several thousand dollars per person. Overseas trips to places like Asia or Africa or Europe often cost tens of thousands of dollars per person. A television network that sends multiple people to cover the president on a foreign trip often spends in excess of $100,000 over a weeklong trip.

An individual blogger or a small, online news organization is often not in the position to pay those costs. And since they have access to the pool reports from the bigger organizations, most smaller or independent journalists make the decision — voluntarily — not to participate in the press pool system.