Reporters say the White House sometimes demands edits to press-pool reports

(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

Press-pool reports are information shared among reporters. They are meant to be "the news media's eyes and ears on the president, an independent chronicle of his public activities," according to The Washington Post. They're used mainly when only a handful of reporters can be present to cover an event, usually due to limited press passes or space.

The reports are written by journalists for journalists — so it's troubling that reporters say these reports are sometimes edited by the White House before the information is shared.

While most of the changes are minor, the edits have been used to produce more favorable coverage for the president. For example, one edit, which was only barely revoked, was a nixing of a reporter's observation that President Obama asked a veteran he was honoring to make a wish, "preferably one that had something to do with the number 270." This happened in 2012, when 270 was the number of electoral college votes Obama needed for re-election.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox