Reporters say the White House sometimes demands edits to press-pool reports
Reporters say the White House edits the info they share with other reporters
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.
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While White House interference with press-pool reports has occasionally occurred at least as far back as the Ford administration, journalists say edits have increased noticeably under Obama. As a result, the White House Correspondents' Association is researching ways to end official involvement with the reports.
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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.
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