The White House Correspondents’ Association is objecting to President Trump’s threat to end on-camera press briefings.
Jeff Mason, president of the association and a White House reporter for Reuters, said in a statement on Friday that ending the briefings would “threaten” government accountability.
“White House briefings and press conferences provide substantive and symbolic opportunities for journalists to pose questions to officials at the highest levels of the U.S. government,” he said. “That exercise, conducted in full view of our republic’s citizens, is clearly in line with the spirit of the First Amendment. Doing away with briefings would reduce accountability, transparency, and the opportunity for Americans to see that, in the U.S. system, no political figure is above being questioned.”
He added: “The White House Correspondents’ Association would object to any move that would threaten those constitutionally-protected principles.”
The association represents many of the reporters who cover the White House.
Earlier in the day, Trump said on Twitter that “it is not possible” for anyone representing the White House to be entirely in sync when speaking for him.
“…Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future ‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???” he tweeted.
The messages were an apparent response to critics in the media who have pointed out inconsistencies by Trump and White House officials related to the firing of now-former FBI Director James Comey.
