WASHINGTON — Journalists from and several other news organizations were prohibited from attending a briefing by President<br />Trump’s press secretary on Friday, a highly unusual breach of relations between the White House and its press corps.<br />Reporters from The Times, BuzzFeed News, CNN, The Los Angeles Times<br />and Politico were not allowed to enter the West Wing office of the press secretary, Sean M. Spicer, for the scheduled briefing.<br />Aides to Mr. Spicer only allowed in reporters from a handpicked group of news organizations that, the White House said, had been previously confirmed.<br />board is protesting strongly against how today’s gaggle is being handled by the<br />White House,” the association president, Jeff Mason, said in a statement.<br />Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest.”<br />The White House Correspondents’ Association, which represents the press corps, quickly rebuked the White House’s actions.<br />“Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations<br />of different parties,” Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, said in a statement.<br />Reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press, who were set to be allowed<br />in, chose not to attend the briefing in protest of the White House’s actions.<br />The White House move came hours after Mr. Trump delivered a slashing attack on<br />the news media in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
