Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire White House kicks CNN, Politico, LA Times and NY Times out of WhiteHouse Briefings

CNN and other news outlets were blocked Friday from an off-camera White House press briefing, raising alarm among media organizations and First Amendment watchdogs.

The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Politico and BuzzFeed were also excluded from the meeting, which is known as a gaggle and is less formal than the televised Q-and-A session in the White House briefing room. The gaggle was held by White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

In a brief statement defending the move, administration spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the White House "had the pool there so everyone would be represented and get an update from us today."

The pool usually includes a representative from one television network and one print outlet. In this case, four of the five major television networks -- NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox News -- were invited and attended the meeting, while only CNN was blocked.

And while The New York Times was kept out, conservative media organizations Breitbart News, The Washington Times and One America News Network were also allowed in.

Asked whether CNN and The New York Times were blocked because the administration was unhappy with their reporting, Spicer responded: "We had it as pool, and then we expanded it, and we added some folks to come cover it. It was my decision to expand the pool."

Both CNN and the Times protested the decision.

"This is an unacceptable development by the Trump White House. Apparently this is how they retaliate when you report facts they don't like. We'll keep reporting regardless," CNN said in a statement.

Trump should shut out the far left media outlets period. They will never give Trump a fair shake. I personally would cut them out of pool reporting access all together. Kick them out of the pool and bar their use of pool reports.

I'd only allow real journalists in too.