Trump's Media Takeover: Creators, Podcasters In, Legacy Media Out
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will decide who covers Trump, and how. Trump's grip on the media also reached Bezos and the Washington Post.
💬 Quick CONVERSATION STARTERS:
“This is the ever-changing landscape of the media in the United States today”
Even Fox is not happy about this White House media takeover!
Is the White House harming the spread of reliable information?
Is the White House shift about transparency or control?
“The Trump Administration has already proven to be the most transparent ever and this president the most accessible in history,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week when she announced that the Trump administration — not media representatives — will choose what journalists have access to President Donald Trump as part of the White House press pool.
Leavitt continued: “The president and this entire White House are committed to ensuring the American people continue to receive this same level of historic transparency, access, and visibility. In fact, we want to double down and give even greater access to the American people. We want more outlets and new outlets to have a chance to take part in the press pool, to cover this administration's unprecedented achievements up close, front and center.”
Straight from the podium of the White House briefing room, Trump’s Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt lamented that “for decades, a group of D.C.-based journalists, the White House Correspondents’ Association [WHCA], has long dictated which journalists get to ask questions of the president of the United States in these most intimate spaces. Not anymore.”
Not anymore?
Well, Leavitt said in front of a full room of White House correspondents: “We are going to give the power back to the people who read your papers, who watch your television shows, and who listen to your radio stations. Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team. Legacy outlets who have participated in the press pool for decades will still be allowed to join, fear not, but we will also be offering the privilege to well-deserving outlets who have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility.”
Early on, at the beginning of the Trump administration in January, Karoline Leavitt announced an initial shift from legacy media to new media, including podcasters, content creators, influencers, and Youtubers.
“Just like we added a new media seat in this briefing room, legacy media outlets who have been here for years will still participate in the pool, but new voices are going to be welcomed in as well,” she said last week.
When Leavitt open the so-called “new media seats” in the briefing room, she gave those coveted spots to Mike Allen, co-founder and executive editor of Axios, and Matt Boyle, Washington bureau chief for Breitbart.
Now that the White House is tightening its grip on the press, Allen commented: “Trump and his administration are doing this systematically, gleefully and unmistakably. But as we've written before, this unprecedented shift could set the precedent for future Democratic presidents, too.”
“This is the ever-changing landscape of the media in the United States today.”
Let’s unpack this!
As part of these new changes, the White House and Leavitt’s team:
will continue the rotation amongst the five major television networks to ensure the president's remarks are heard far and wide around this world
will add additional streaming services, which reach different audiences than traditional cable and broadcast
will continue to rotate a print pooler who has the great responsibility of quickly transcribing the president's remarks and disseminating them to the rest of the world
will add outlets to the print pool rotation who have long been denied the privilege to partake in this experience but are committed to covering this White House beat
will continue to rotate a radio pooler and add other radio hosts who have been denied access, especially local radio hosts who serve as the heartbeat of our country
will add additional outlets and reporters who are well suited to cover the news of the day and ask substantive questions of the president of the United States, depending on the news he is making on that given day
“This administration is shaking up Washington in more ways than one,” Leavitt said. “That's what we were elected to do. As I have said since the first day behind this podium, it's beyond time that the White House press operation reflects the media habits of the American people in 2025, not 1925.”
Trump’s Press Secretary pointed out that “A select group of D.C.-based journalists should no longer have a monopoly over the privilege of press access at the White House.”
She added: “So, by deciding which outlets make up the limited press pool on a day-to-day basis, the White House will be restoring power back to the American people, who President Trump was elected to serve.”
“The audience may not understand”
Leavitt was asked about the White House media shift on Fox.
She told Lawrence Jones during Fox & Friends: “So, for your audience who may not understand, what has happened at this White House for decades, you have a group of journalists, based here in Washington D.C., who dictate which reporters go into the intimate spaces of the American Presidency — the Oval Office, who gets to ride on Air Force One. That system hasn’t changed since the early 1900s. Obviously, the media today in 2025, looks a heck of a lot different than it did when the White House Correspondents’ Association was formed.”
She added: “This is a long-overdue change. A lot of Press Secretaries and White Houses have talked about making this change. We are just the first to do it. We’re shaking up Washington in more ways than one.”
Leavitt pointed out to the many changes to the White House press shop and highlighted: “The President own the non traditional media lane. […] That’s how you reach a bulk of America today. They are not tuning in to the legacy media outlets. They are listening to podcasts when they drive to work. They are reading non-traditional outlets and digital sites. So, those voices deserve a seat at the table and that’s what we’re trying to do here.”
But even Fox is not happy about this White House media takeover!
Jacqui Heinrich, Fox News’ Senior White House correspondent, sharply criticized the move.
“This move does not give the power back to the people — it gives power to the White House,” she stated following the announcement. “The WHCA is democratically elected by the full-time White House press corps.”
Heinrich, who is part of the WHCA board, added: The “WHCA has determined pools for decades because only representatives FROM our outlets can determine resources all those outlets have — such as staffing — in order to get the President's message out to the largest possible audience, no matter the day or hour.”
Why the public can no longer trust pool reports?
Eugene Daniels, WHCA President and POLITICO Chief Playbook Correspondent and White House Correspondent, issued a statement on behalf of the WHCA.
“This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States,” the statement reads. “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.”
Daniels added: “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. Since its founding in 1914, the WHCA has sought to ensure that the reporters, photographers, producers and technicians who actually do the work - 365 days of every year - decide amongst themselves how these rotations are operated, so as to ensure consistent professional standards and fairness in access on behalf of all readers, viewers and listeners.”
Interviewed by MSNBC, Daniels added: “For years the WHCA had created a format for standards, length, accuracy for the American people that they could trust that those standards created by the folks that actually do the work were understood by everyone and you could trust the reports that were coming out of that. That can longer be trusted frankly,” he added. “Because at the end of the day, these standards are going to be created by the folks that are being covered.”
Is the White House harming the spread of reliable information?
“The three permanent wires in the White House pool, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and Reuters, have long worked to ensure that accurate, fair and timely information about the presidency is communicated to a broad audience of all political persuasions, both in the United States and globally,” Julie Pace, Executive Editor of AP, John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief of Bloomberg, and Alessandra Galloni, Editor-in-Chief of Reuters wrote last week in a statement.
“Much of the White House coverage people see in their local news outlets, wherever they are in the world, comes from the wires,” they added. “It is essential in a democracy for the public to have access to news about their government from an independent, free press. We believe that any steps by the government to limit the number of wire services with access to the President threatens that principle. It also harms the spread of reliable information to people, communities, businesses and global financial markets that heavily depend on our reporting.”
“Democracy Dies in Darkness,” is this true anymore?
In February 2017, the Washington Post added a new motto beneath its masthead — “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
The paper's owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, used the same phrase in an interview with the then-Washington Post's executive editor, Martin Baron, at a tech forum in May 2016, shortly before Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States.
“I think a lot of us believe this, that democracy dies in darkness, that certain institutions have a very important role in making sure that there is light,” Bezos said at the time, speaking about his reasons for buying the paper.
Bezos apparently heard the phrase from legendary investigative reporter Bob Woodward, a Post associate editor, who used it to refer to the Nixon years. But Woodward also said he didn’t coin it. Instead, he read it some years earlier in a judicial opinion in a First Amendment case.
Fast forward to 2025, more than 75,000 Washington Post subscribers have canceled subscriptions after Bezos announced an overhaul of the paper’s opinion section to an explicitly line focused on “personal liberties and free markets” — sparking criticism he is altering the paper to appease President Trump.
“I am of America and for America, and proud to be so,” Bezos said. “I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.”
Trump’s influence in Bezos’ decision seems to be clear, and growing. In fact, Trump told The Spectator he had dinner with Bezos on the same day Bezos announced the overhaul.
Bravo, Jeff Bezos!
— Elon Musk on X
Lot’s of comments and reactions right here on Substack…
… starting from Substack’s co-founders
and .“That is keeping with the big movement of technology and the media at the moment,” Hamish told Chris. “We need to get away from this era where centralized rulers can have so much power over what gets printed, what gets said, what’s allowed to be said.”
“Democracy Dies In Bezos,” titled
in .Similarly,
and pointed out in their : “Democracy dies with Jeff Bezos.”“It turns out that democracy also dies in broad daylight when billionaires control major media outlets,” commented
in .- said in : “The news is dying, and the American people will be less informed because of it. The billionaire class is responsible.”
“Jeff Bezos, one of the richest people on Earth, is using one of America's most storied newspapers as his personal ideological megaphone,” said
in .“This shift of Bezos reveals why we Americans can never give people like him the power over us and how we think or what we create,” wrote
in .- pointed out in : “Well, look, what Bezos has done is a real service here. He’s proven us right. There are those of us who’ve said that rich moguls own newspapers in order to promote political agendas which benefit their interests.”
“The reality is that with each move Bezos makes, they are hemorrhaging subscribers,” said
in .- in : “Free market, in billionaire speak, is opposition to regulation and worker rights. Personal liberties in the same billionaire speak means that billionaires should have the freedom to do whatever they want.”
- wrote in : “If this dictum smells rank, that’s because it is rank.”
“Why was I so surprised? Because this is EXACTLY what Bezos said he wouldn’t do,” said
in . “He EXPRESSLY said he wouldn’t get involved in the Post’s work product because a) he wasn’t an expert in the world of journalism and b) public trust blah blah blah.”- pointed out in : “As shocking as Bezos’ groveling is, it’s just the latest in a string of extraordinary favors he’s done for Trump and the man Trump has turned much of the US government over to, Elon Musk.”
“This ideological pivot comes at a critical moment when tech billionaires across Silicon Valley are scrambling to demonstrate their loyalty to the new power structure in Washington,” said
in .- wrote in his Substack : “I’m not surprised—and I’m mostly relieved that it happened sooner than later, and with such clarity.”
- , co-host of Pod Save America and author of , said: “Now, Bezos is not dumb. He intentionally wrote this in the sort of gauzy language that makes it all seem so inoffensive. But let’s be clear about what he means — the paper he owns will only publish opinions he agrees with. Dissenting viewpoints are not welcome and will not be tolerated.”
- commented on Notes: “It’s a free country, Bezos owns the newspaper, he’s free speech to do what he wants with it. But if his two pillars are gonna be ‘personal liberties’ and ‘free markets’, then his newspaper is gonna be super critical of Trump.”
- wrote in : “The lines are being redrawn, but not between MAGA and the Left. The true battle is between the billionaires, the "parasite class" and the rest of us, the working people who create the value that they seize the lion's share of. Bezos just put WaPo on the wrong side.”
- and discussed Bezos’ announcement on Substack live video here…
How does she sleep at night?