Remember the meme, “What would you have done in 1930’s Germany? Guess what, you’re doing it now.” There is immense truth contained in that homily. The White House took a shocking — although not surprising — action this morning. Karoline Leavitt announced that going forward the White House would determine which outlets are allowed into the press pool, not the White House Correspondents’ Association, according to The Hill. This follows on the heels of the Associated Press being banished a few weeks ago when it refused to use “Gulf Of America” in place of Gulf of Mexico. This is the same outlet about which Mark Twain said, “There are only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the globe — only two — the sun in the heavens and the Associated Press down here.” Trump would bring the darkness and he has. This is not a drill.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said moving forward, the White House press pool, a small group of reporters that travels with and cover the president’s daily activities, will now be determined by administration officials. Traditionally, the press pool is coordinated by the Correspondents’ Association, which White House officials across multiple administrations have traditionally given deference to.
“It’s beyond time the White House press pool reflects the media habits of the American people in 2025,” Leavitt said during a briefing with reporters.
The goal, Leavitt said, is to give new or alternative media companies greater access to the administration while still keeping certain “legacy” outlets in the rotation.
Leavitt’s announcement comes as the White House continues to bar The Associated Press from access to President Trump in the Oval Office, on Air Force One, and in other spaces where typically only the pool gathers, due to lack to space. […]
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Monday declined to restore The Associated Press’s access to certain spaces open to the media at the White House, saying AP failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits and emphasized that additional briefing on the matter is necessary “given the stakes” for both parties. The judge set an expedited schedule and ordered arguments on a preliminary injunction for March 20.
Just as I predicted, once no other media organization stood with AP (other than issuing statements) this was the next step. And when you bow down to this, there will be another step taken to erode press freedoms. If you don’t fight for your rights, you lose them.
Started / Going pic.twitter.com/4v4gKw22MW
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) February 25, 2025
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the WHCA said the White House “did not give the WHCA board a heads up or have any discussions about today’s announcements.”
“This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States. 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 organization said.
“For generations, the working journalists elected to lead the White House Correspondents’ Association board have consistently expanded the WHCA’s membership and its pool rotations to facilitate the inclusion of new and emerging outlets.”
John McCain was quoted as saying, When you look at history, the first thing dictators do is shut down the press.” Both Hitler and the Soviet Union used the term “enemy of the people” when describing the free press. Viktor Orban is renowned for beating and intimidating journalists. History is full of examples of journalists who have been maimed or killed for telling the truth.
Rosenbaum went on to tell the story of the Munich Post, a newspaper that stood up to Hitler until the very end.
During the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, Hitler’s failed attempt to seize power, the offices of the paper Hitler called “the poison kitchen” (for, as Rosenbaum explains, “the slanders about him they were allegedly cooking up”) were trashed (“desks and chairs smashed, papers strewn into a chaos of rubble, as if an explosion had gone off inside the building”). But, “the Munich Post never stopped investigating who Hitler was and what he wanted, and Hitler never stopped hating them for it,” Rosenbaum wrote.
After Hitler’s rise to power in January 1933, the newspaper continued its resistance, with headlines like “Outlaws and Murderers in Power” and “People Allow Themselves to be Intimidated.”
The paper was soon shut down. “Some of the journalists ended up in Dachau, some ‘disappeared,’” Rosenbaum wrote.
“But they’d won a victory for truth. A victory over normalization. They never stopped fighting the lies, big and small, and left a record of defiance that was heroic and inspirational.”
It’s hard to imagine the United States facing a similar fate, with its First Amendment and tradition of a healthy Fourth Estate. It’s important to recognize that the uneasy relationship between press and power is part of the nation’s strength.
One of the best movies ever made about journalism is Deadline USA with Humphrey Bogart. If you haven’t seen it, you should. It addresses the kind of issues we’re talking about here except that the thug who poses the problem is not the president of the United States.
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Friends, for reasons which need no explanation we can use your support as we get through these trying times. Thank you. Ursula
We are lucky to live in a world where the ‘new press’, blogs like this one are uncensored/un-selfcensored.
So far.
Let’s face it…the majority of citizens are interested in only themselves. Easy prey. There was never a majority of heroes, true patriots, etc. in any country. We are more similar to the Germans than we like to believe. I often wonder what the average German thought, either having joined, or being forced into the nazi party. Standing with a high powered rifle a few feet from naked women and children, getting ready to pull the trigger, what did they think of themselves, killing unarmed naked children as they were crying and terrified, as the trench behind them was full of dying or dead people. MONSTERS who used to be citizens of a Christian democratic Republic. And anyone who thinks we are better…you are a goddamn fool. A goddamn fool. A goddamn self deluded ignorant fool. Just wait and YOU may participate in atrocities someday. Shooting these nazi phuckers isn’t one, as our boys did 1941-1945. Going along with the evil is an atrocity. Oh, and before congratulating ourselves over our ‘freedoms’…look what has happened in a few weeks. Never celebrate until the war is over. This one has just begun. Even the so called little fish were eventually rounded up. That’s down the line.
A twist on that quote is “Whatever you think the German people should have done in the 1930’s, if you’re not already doing it, start right now.”