The White House press corps is the group of journalists, correspondents, and members of the media usually assigned to the White House in Washington, D.C., to cover the president of the United States, White House events, and news briefings. Its offices are located in the West Wing.

Overview

The White House press secretary, or a deputy, generally holds a weekday news briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, which currently seats 49 reporters. Each seat is assigned to a news gathering organization, with the most prominent organizations occupying the first two rows. Reporters who do not have an assigned seat may stand. Often a smaller group of reporters known as the "press pool" is assembled to report back to their colleagues on events where the venue would make open coverage logistically difficult. There can be different pools assembled on any given day to include a pool covering the president, vice president, first lady, and other prominent members of the staff. When a new U.S. president is elected, some news organizations change their correspondents, most often to the reporter who had been assigned to cover the new president during the preceding campaign. For example, after the 2020 United States presidential election, Peter Doocy, Fox News' lead campaign reporter during the two years that Joe Biden campaigned for president, moved on to be the chief White House correspondent for the cable news channel, replacing John Roberts, who had been chief correspondent during the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

History

The White House press corps had their first duties in the White House in the early 1900s. An urban legend exists of President Theodore Roosevelt noticing a group of correspondents in the rain looking for sources for their stories and inviting them into the White House. Subsequent historical research outlines how reporters were able to start with small stories in the White House and then grew their presence and influence over a span of many years. The White House press "pool" gets its name from the briefing room which used to be a pool until President Richard Nixon converted the pool into a briefing room. The pool, which was covered, still remains under the briefing room. In 1977, a court ruled in "Sherrill v. Knight" that the White House had a limited right to deny a press pass. In 2018, the White House withdrew the pass of Jim Acosta of CNN. CNN sued, and a federal judge temporarily ordered the pass to be restored, on grounds of due process. In May 2019, under a new standard, the White House revoked dozens of press passes.

Notable correspondents

The White House Correspondents' Association organizes the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room seating chart (viewable at the bottom of this page). Several outlets have had reporters covering the White House full time and a permanent assigned seat in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room.