When Donald Trump unveiled a helipad at the White House on Monday, his remarks were barely audible in live footage of the event. This was due to a row over an institution that rarely makes the news – the White House Press pool. Yet it is at the heart of relations between the US president and the media, and this dispute could have constitutional implications.
Coverage of upcoming presidential engagements, which include the UN General Assembly in New York, could be affected. It is a group of news organisations that combine resources to follow presidents wherever they are - in the Oval Office, at state dinners, on Air Force One or on holiday. There are separate pools for TV, photographers and print and radio outlets, as well as a "new media" category.
Material from the TV pool feed is shared between its members - CNN, ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC - to save on costs and space. The pool is always on standby in case an event requires the president to speak to the nation. The latest row began on Friday, when Trump said he was banning three outlets - CNN, Politico and MS NOW - from the White House, accusing them of spreading "fake news" and "fictions and lies" about his team.
A day later, reporters from those organisations found that their entry badges to the White House had been disabled. On Monday, all the major US TV networks decided to pull out of White House pool duties - in effect boycotting presidential events. That afternoon came the first test of this post-pool era - the new helipad.
But with no pool cameras present, much of the media did not carry any pictures and for those that did, there was no microphone to clearly pick up the president's remarks. Fox News Washington bureau chief Bryan Boughton, who currently holds the rotating role covering the White House, wrote in an email seen by the BBC that "effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage" of President Trump. In a joint statement, the five networks said: "The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government.
"No administration should restrict a news organisation because it objects to its reporting." The First Amendment of the US Constitution protects speech and press freedoms. It forbids the government from "abridging" the freedom of the press - language that courts have traditionally interpreted as preventing the government from discriminating against the media based on the content of their coverage. CNN, Politico and MS NOW have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to "defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports".
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