Reuters among several news agencies barred from covering Trump’s first cabinet meeting

The White House has barred access for the Reuters, Associated Press, HuffPost and German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel to cover President Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting.

The White House Correspondents’ Association has traditionally coordinated the rotation of the presidential press pool. Reuters, an international wire service, has participated in the pool for decades.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that while traditional media organizations would still be permitted to cover Trump on a day-to-day basis, the administration plans to change who participates in smaller spaces. The pool system, administered by the WHCA, allowed select television, radio, wire, print and photojournalists to cover events and share their reporting with the broader media.

The three wire services that have traditionally served as permanent members of the White House pool, the AP, Bloomberg and Reuters, on Wednesday released a statement in response to the new policy.

Gulf of America led to Associated Press barred

The services “have long worked to ensure that accurate, fair and timely information about the presidency is communicated to a broad audience of all political persuasions, both in the United States and globally.

Much of the White House coverage people see in their local news outlets, wherever they are in the world, comes from the wires,” the statement from the three organizations said.

“It is essential in a democracy for the public to have access to news about their government from an independent, free press.”

The Trump administration’s decision to bar the Associated Press from being in the pool is because it has declined to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, the name Trump has assigned the body of water, or update its widely followed stylebook to reflect such a change.

Leavitt said the five major cable and broadcast television networks would continue to hold their rotating seats in the pool while the White House would add streaming services.

Rotating print reporters and radio reporters would continue to be included, while new outlets and radio hosts would be added.