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    He’s the Face of a White House Press Corps Under Attack by Trump

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    Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, is pushing back on the administration’s hostility to reporters as he navigates a move to MSNBC from Politico.Eugene Daniels didn’t plan on being the face of the White House press corps in the dawn of a new administration hostile to the news media.But because of a clause in the bylaws of the White House Correspondents’ Association, an 800-strong group of journalists who report on the president, he was next in line after Kaitlan Collins, the CNN star who was elected 2024-25 president of the association, had to step aside because of a move to New York.Mr. Daniels, 36, a co-author of Politico’s Playbook newsletter, has now emerged as a key figure in an escalating fight between the Trump White House and the news media over press access and freedom. And he’s balancing his role at the association, which is unpaid volunteer work, with his career, moving this month to a new on-air job at MSNBC.“We’re all competitors, fierce competitors, and the White House beat is tough, but at the same time, when it’s time to stand together, folks actually do that,” Mr. Daniels said of the correspondents’ association in an interview. “It’s unfortunate that this is where we are.”The Trump administration has made no secret of its contempt for reporters, but its actions in recent weeks have shocked many news outlets.President Trump first directed his communications team to bar The Associated Press from the press pool, a rotating group of reporters that travels with the president, and from spaces like the Oval Office and Air Force One. That was in retaliation for The A.P.’s continued use of “Gulf of Mexico” after Mr. Trump’s executive order to change the geographical name to Gulf of America. (Dozens of media outlets, including CNN, The New York Times and Fox News, protested the decision, and The A.P. has filed a First Amendment lawsuit.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Trump’s Washington, a Moscow-Like Chill Takes Hold

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      A new administration’s efforts to pressure the news media, punish political opponents and tame the nation’s tycoons evoke the early days of President Vladimir V. Putin’s reign in Russia.She asked too many questions that the president didn’t like. She reported too much about criticism of his administration. And so, before long, Yelena Tregubova was pushed out of the Kremlin press pool that covered President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.In the scheme of things, it was a small moment, all but forgotten nearly 25 years later. But it was also a telling one. Mr. Putin did not care for challenges. The rest of the press pool got the message and eventually became what the Kremlin wanted it to be: a collection of compliant reporters who knew to toe the line or else they would pay a price.The decision by President Trump’s team to handpick which news organizations can participate in the White House press pool that questions him in the Oval Office or travels with him on Air Force One is a step in a direction that no modern American president of either party has ever taken. The White House said it was a privilege, not a right, to have such access, and that it wanted to open space for “new media” outlets, including those that just so happen to support Mr. Trump.But after the White House’s decision to bar the venerable Associated Press as punishment for its coverage, the message is clear: Any journalist can be expelled from the pool at any time for any reason. There are worse penalties, as Ms. Tregubova would later discover, but in Moscow, at least, her eviction was an early step down a very slippery slope.The United States is not Russia by any means, and any comparisons risk going too far. Russia barely had any history with democracy then, while American institutions have endured for nearly 250 years. But for those of us who reported there a quarter century ago, Mr. Trump’s Washington is bringing back memories of Mr. Putin’s Moscow in the early days.The news media is being pressured. Lawmakers have been tamed. Career officials deemed disloyal are being fired. Prosecutors named by a president who promised “retribution” are targeting perceived adversaries and dropping cases against allies or others who do his bidding. Billionaire tycoons who once considered themselves masters of the universe are prostrating themselves before him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      White House Moves to Pick the Pool Reporters Who Cover Trump

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      The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday that the Trump administration would start handpicking which media outlets were allowed to participate in the presidential pool, the small, rotating group of journalists who relay the president’s day-to-day activities to the public.The change announced by Ms. Leavitt breaks decades of precedent. The White House Correspondents’ Association, a group representing journalists who cover the administration, has long determined on its own which reporters would participate in the daily pool.Because presidents often hold events in smaller settings like the Oval Office, where not every reporter who covers the president can fit, the pool format has long been used to ensure that journalists accurately record a president’s comments. The reporters who witness the events distribute a series of “pool reports” to a wider group of journalists, including hundreds of news outlets that cover his daily activities and remarks.The pool is most often made up of journalists from organizations like CNN, Reuters, The Associated Press, ABC News, Fox News and The New York Times.Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, speaking to reporters in the briefing room this month.Eric Lee/The New York TimesMs. Leavitt said that the new policy was intended to allow “new media” outlets — such as digital sites, streaming services and podcasts — “to share in this awesome responsibility.”The White House Correspondents’ Association rebuked the move in a blistering statement.“This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States,” Eugene Daniels, the president of the association, wrote. “It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president. In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.”The association said that it had been given no warning of Ms. Leavitt’s announcement and that there had been no prior discussions about it with the White House. “The W.H.C.A. will never stop advocating for comprehensive access, full transparency and the right of the American public to read, listen to and watch reports from the White House, delivered without fear or favor,” Mr. Daniels wrote.The Trump administration recently added a “new media” seat in the White House briefing room. The seat has been occupied by some journalists who strive for accuracy and fairness, such as reporters at Axios and Semafor, and by partisan figures who are sympathetic to the Trump administration, such as the podcast host Sage Steele.“Legacy media outlets who been here for years will still participate in the pool, but new voices are going to be welcomed in as well,” Ms. Leavitt said at Tuesday’s press briefing.Ms. Leavitt did not provide specific details of how the plan might work, but it would allow President Trump and his aides to handpick which reporters and media personalities were granted the ability to ask him questions and observe his behavior at specific events.Ms. Leavitt put a different spin on it. “By deciding which outlets make up the limited press pool on a day-to-day basis, the White House will be restoring power back to the American people,” she said. More

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      Trump’s Ban on The A.P. Echoes Orwell’s ‘1984’

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      President Trump has been battling with The Associated Press over his decree that the body of water between Florida and Mexico be identified as the Gulf of America. This may look like no more than a classic Washington quarrel, long a characteristic of the press and the presidency, that has reached an extreme level over semantics. It’s much bigger than that, and the implications are far-reachingI say that as a former longtime White House reporter. I began my stint there covering Jimmy Carter for The A.P. As its senior White House correspondent during most of Ronald Reagan’s first term, I was in and out of the Oval Office almost daily and regularly traveled aboard Air Force One. Later, as a Los Angeles Times correspondent, I covered the White House during Mr. Reagan’s second term and the presidencies of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.This far from conventional dispute erupted nearly two weeks ago when an A.P. reporter was barred from an Oval Office event because his news organization had continued to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by its longstanding name. Three days later, a White House official said the administration would bar A.P. reporters from the Oval Office and from Air Force One, though they would retain credentials to the White House complex. Mr. Trump weighed in on Tuesday, saying, “We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America.”Dozens of major news organizations, including The New York Times and the conservative outlets Fox News and Newsmax, called on the White House on Monday to lift its ban on The A.P., to no avail. On Friday, The A.P. sued top White House officials, accusing them of violating the First and Fifth Amendments by denying its reporters access.The attack on the news agency brings into focus the administration’s refusal to respect the First Amendment, with presidential aides and the president himself trying to dictate the very language news reporters may use — just as George Orwell’s fictional dictators did. It is emblematic of the broader assault by the White House on the public’s right to know. In the administration’s opening weeks, Brendan Carr, Mr. Trump’s new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has ordered his agency to investigate ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and NPR. The Defense Department has thrown such mainstream media outlets as The New York Times, NBC News and NPR out of their work spaces in the Pentagon and moved in some conservative outlets.The pressure has begun to take on the outlines of chilling history. Dictators and other authoritarian leaders have long sought to control the critical role the mass media plays in shaping public discourse.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      I’ve Covered Authoritarians Abroad. Trump’s Actions Look Familiar.

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      President Trump’s second term dizzies many Americans, but I find it oddly familiar — an echo of the time I lived in China as a reporter.Americans sometimes misperceive Trump’s actions as a fire hose of bizarre and disparate moves, a kaleidoscope of craziness. Yet there is a method to it, and I’ve seen parallels in authoritarian countries I’ve covered around the world over the past four decades.It’s not that I offer a unified theory of Trumpism, but there is a coherence there that requires a coherent response. Strongmen seek power — political power but also other currencies, including wealth and a glittering place in history — through a pattern of behavior that is increasingly being replicated in Washington.But let’s get this out of the way: I think parallels with 1930s Germany are overdrawn and diminish the horror of the Third Reich; the word “fascism” may likewise muddy more than clarify. Having covered genuinely totalitarian and genocidal regimes, I can assure you that this is not that.Democracy is not an on-off switch but a dial. We won’t become North Korea, but we could look more like Viktor Orban’s Hungary. This is a question not of ideology but of power grabs: Leftists eroded democracy in Venezuela and Nicaragua, and rightists did so in Hungary, India and (for a time) the Philippines and Poland. The U.S. is the next test case.When authoritarians covet power, they pursue several common strategies.First, they go after checks and balances within the government, usually by running roughshod over other arms of government. China, for example, has a Supreme Court and a National People’s Congress — but they are supine. Here in the United States, many Republican members of Congress have similarly been reduced to adoring cheerleaders.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump and Musk Attack Journalists by Name in Social Media Posts

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      Since his inauguration, the president has been quick to demonize what he calls “the fake news media.” On Friday, both men demanded that individuals be fired.President Trump has made clear his animus toward mainstream media organizations. Now he’s getting more personal.Mr. Trump and his key lieutenant, Elon Musk, who has been empowered to run what they call the Department of Government Efficiency as a “special government employee,” have attacked journalists by name in recent days on the social media platforms they own: Truth Social and X.On his Truth Social account on Friday, Mr. Trump called for The Washington Post to fire Eugene Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, and labeled him “incompetent.” Mr. Trump frequently posts on the account to his millions of followers and regularly condemns perceived enemies.Mr. Robinson had written in an opinion column on Thursday that top Republican senators “should be ashamed of themselves” for not standing up to Mr. Trump during the confirmation process for some of his cabinet picks and for not protesting Mr. Musk’s taking an ax to government departments like the United States Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid programs. Mr. Robinson also appeared on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC on Friday to discuss his column.“So sad to see him trying to justify the waste, fraud, and corruption at USAID with his pathetic Radical Left SPIN,” Mr. Trump wrote. “He should be fired immediately!!!”In an email, a spokeswoman for The Post said: “Eugene Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist with a 45-year record of integrity, professionalism and scrupulous reporting and commentary. The Washington Post stands behind Gene — just as it stands behind all journalists and news organizations dedicated to independent coverage and a free press.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      José Rubén Zamora Will Leave Prison After Nearly Two Years

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      The case against José Rubén Zamora became a sign of crumbling democracy in Guatemala and a symbol of threats against press freedom across Latin America.After spending more than 810 days in a cramped cell with little more than his books to keep him company, one of Guatemala’s most renowned journalists will be released to house detention this weekend as he waits to find out whether he will be granted a new trial.The decision comes after a judge ruled Friday that José Rubén Zamora, the founder and publisher of elPeriódico, a leading newspaper in Guatemala that aggressively investigated government corruption, had spent too much time in prison without a trial and that he was not likely to flee. “I have never wanted to flee Guatemala, which is also my country, not just the country of the authorities in power,” Mr. Zamora, 68, told the judge. “If you place your trust in me, I will honor it.”Mr. Zamora was convicted last year of money laundering, sentenced to as many as six years in prison and fined about $40,000. He called the charges politically motivated and said they were retaliation for his newspaper’s focus on public corruption.As part of his detention outside jail, he will be required to report periodically to the authorities and remain confined in his home.His trial was plagued with irregularities and was broadly seen as fundamentally unfair — another move to undermine democracy and target critical press coverage during the administration of former President Alejandro Giammattei.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Amadou Mahtar M’Bow, 103, Dies; His Tenure Leading UNESCO Was Stormy

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      He was the first Black African to head a major international organization, but complaints about his tenure led the U.S. and Britain to pull out of it.Amadou Mahtar M’Bow, a Senegalese civil servant and politician who became the first Black African to head a major international organization when he was elected director general of UNESCO — but whose contested tenure there led the United States and Britain to pull out — died on Tuesday in Dakar, Senegal. He was 103.His death, at a hospital, was announced on the website of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which was established to promote international cooperation in those domains.Mr. M’Bow, a rare survivor among the continent’s first generation of independence leaders, had served as Senegal’s education and culture minister when he rose to the top post at UNESCO in 1974. Over the next 13 years he turned the agency into a spearhead for grievances in the developing world and the Soviet bloc, mainly over Western cultural dominance, while entrenching himself behind a phalanx of handpicked bureaucrats at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.His resistance to Western influences, as well as accusations of misspending and nepotism, contributed to decisions by President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to pull their countries out of UNESCO in disgust, the U.S. in 1984 and Britain in 1985. Britain rejoined in 1997, the United States in 2003.The withdrawal by the U.S. was particularly disastrous for UNESCO, as American contributions had provided a quarter of its budget. For years afterward, the agency was seen by critics as the poster child for U.N. bloat and politicization.Criticism of Mr. M’Bow centered on his promotion of what came to be known as a “new world information order,” a vague body of recommendations that many in the West regarded as a threat to freedom of the press, while its advocates saw it as an attempt to break the perceived Western monopoly on the reporting and dissemination of news.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Evan Gershkovich’s Conviction in Russia Won’t Stop Journalists From Seeking the Truth

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      The only surprise in the guilty verdict against Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal correspondent who was arrested in Russia last year on phony charges of espionage, was that it came so quickly. The charge itself was a farce. No evidence was ever made public, the hearings were held in secret, and Mr. Gershkovich’s lawyers were barred from saying anything in public about the case.Mr. Gershkovich’s arrest, trial and conviction all serve President Vladimir Putin’s goal of silencing any honest reporting from inside Russia about the invasion of Ukraine and of making Russians even warier of speaking with any foreigner about the war.Independent Russian news outlets have been almost entirely shut down and their journalists imprisoned or forced to leave the country, so foreign correspondents are among the few remaining sources of independent reporting from inside Russia. Mr. Gershkovich’s last published article before his arrest, on March 29, 2023, was headlined “Russia’s Economy Is Starting to Come Undone” — just the sort of vital independent journalism that challenges Mr. Putin’s claims of a strong and vibrant Russia fighting a just war.Russian prosecutors claimed that Mr. Gershkovich, acting on instructions from Washington, used “painstaking conspiratorial methods” to obtain “secret information” about Uralvagonzavod, a Russian weapons factory near Yekaterinburg, where he was arrested and tried.The existence of this massive industrial complex is well known, but the charge of espionage allowed Russian prosecutors to keep the entire proceeding secret while fueling Mr. Putin’s propaganda about efforts by the United States and Europe to destabilize Russia.Mr. Putin’s crackdown on free expression, especially about the war in Ukraine, is unrelenting. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Russia is the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 22 in detention, including Mr. Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian dual citizen and an editor with the U.S.-government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More