White House bans certain news outlets from press briefing

The White House has blocked several major newspapers and broadcasters from attending an informal press briefing.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Friday had selected certain news outlets to participate in an off-camera “gaggle” with reporters inside his West Wing office instead of the White House press briefing room.

Outlets seeking to gain entry whose requests were denied included CNN, the New York Times, Politico, the BBC, the Guardian, and BuzzFeed. Conservative publications such as Brietbart, the One America News Network and the Washington Times were allowed into the meeting, as were TV networks CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox. The Associated Press and Time were invited but boycotted the briefing in protest.

When asked why some news outlets were excluded, Spicer said it was his decision to “expand the pool” of reporters and warned that the White House was going to “aggressively push back” at false narratives in the news.

His decision came hours after Donald Trump again declared that much of the media was “the enemy of the American people” at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC.

“I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources,” he said. “They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there.”

The President’s coments came on the heel of reports that his chief of staff Reince Priebus had privately asked the FBI to prevent news stories of the Trump campaign’s communication with Russian intelligence.