On February 24, 2017, the Trump administration excluded multiple major news outlets, such as CNN, The New York Times, Politico, the Los Angeles Times, and BuzzFeed, from an informal White House press briefing known as a "gaggle." This move was widely condemned by the affected organizations and journalistic bodies, who described it as an unprecedented breach of protocol and an attempt to punish outlets whose coverage the administration disliked. The White House, however, asserted that the briefing was intended to be a smaller gathering and that they expanded the invite list to include conservative-leaning organizations, denying any intent to exclude specific news organizations.
Several news organizations that were granted access, including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, ABC, CBS, and Fox News, expressed discomfort or strong objections to the selective exclusion. The Associated Press and Time magazine, though invited, refused to attend in solidarity with the barred outlets. Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times, stated that "Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties."
The White House Correspondents Association protested the administration's actions, with its president, Jeff Mason, encouraging invited news organizations to share information with those who were excluded. The incident occurred amidst President Trump's escalating rhetoric against the media, whom he frequently labeled as "fake news." Some commentators suggested the move was a deliberate attempt to distract from ongoing investigations into Trump's ties to Russia.
