‘New Media’ in the White House Briefings Is Driving Old Media Batty

The Trump administration’s decision to allow “new media” into the White House press briefings has got the old media up in arms.How bad is it? “Karoline Leavitt Lets Unhinged Sycophant Into White House Briefing,” a headline this week in the New Republic said. When the press secretary held a briefing on Wednesday just for new media — the old media take up nearly all of the 49 seats in the briefing room off the Oval Office — another “news” organization objected. “Karoline Leavitt Is Hosting Fake White House Press Briefings for Pro-Trump Influencers Like ‘MAGA Malfoy,'” a People magazine headline said.While the haters hate, it appears as if the new media is here to stay. For its part, the White House is taking YouTubers, podcasters, Substack newsletter writers, and partisan “content creators” seriously.When Ms. Leavitt took the podium in the South Court Auditorium in the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House on Monday, she greeted the gathering by announcing: “This is our first influencer briefing.”“As I promised in my first briefing as press secretary back in January, the Trump White House will speak to all media outlets and personalities, not just the legacy media who traditionally has covered this institution,” she said. “All journalists, outlets, and voices have a seat at the table now.”For the record, the “new” media isn’t all new. Many will recognize a slew of the organizations that have been grouped in the “new media” category by the White House, which includes one representative of the group in every press “pool.” Among the old new media are Forbes, Fox News Digital, CNBC, and National Review. Others, though, are all new, like the Daily Wire, headed up by a conservative firebrand, Ben Shapiro; Breitbart News, founded by another vocal conservative, Andrew Breitbart; and truly new media like Just the News, the Daily Signal, Axios, the Federalist, Townhall, Outkick, and others. Then there are a bunch that few have heard of, including John Fredericks Media Network, Timcast, Decrypt Media, Agri-Pulse, Global Strat View, Merit Street Media, and others.New media members often aren’t as staid as the mainstream media members that populate the front rows of the White House briefing room. During one of Ms. Leavitt’s press conferences with new media this week, she called on a pro-Trump influencer, Arynne Wexler.Before she asked her question about transgender athletes playing school sports, Ms. Wexler thanked the administration for its crackdown on illegal immigration. “I can attest to the deportations in Florida, my Uber drivers finally speak English again, so thank you for that,” she joked.President Trump has taken aim at the press that covers him, last month removing the designated position for wire services in the daily press pool rotation. That ended the longtime practice of having the Associated Press, Reuters, and Bloomberg News cover all events. The move came after a federal judge ruled that the AP — which refuses to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, as preferred by the president, in its coverage — must be included in the pool if other news services are, so Mr. Trump just killed the wire slots altogether.That has freed up more room for members of the new media, and Ms. Leavitt vowed in one of her first official briefings of the new administration to add new voices to the White House press corps. “This administration is shaking up Washington in more ways than one. 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,” she told reporters in February.“A select group of D.C.-based journalists should no longer have a monopoly over the privilege of press access at the White House. All journalists, outlets, and voices deserve a seat at this highly coveted table. 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,” Ms. Leavitt said.The old media simply hates that. People magazine decried the “fawning questions” posed by new media members, singling out a “gushy opening line” from one conservative personality, Link Lauren. The TikTok creator with nearly a million followers has been dubbed “MAGA Malfoy” for his white hair, which resembles that of Draco Malfoy, a fictional character in the Harry Potter series.“Lauren is a big fan of the Trump White House. He posed a fawning ‘question’ to Leavitt about being a ‘very high-profile young mother who seems to juggle and balance it all beautifully,’ and even filmed a TikTok from the White House lawn,” the magazine that focuses on celebrity scandal wrote.The New Republic also took aim at Rogan O’Handley, known as “DC Draino,” who has 3 million followers on Instagram and 2.2 million on X. The anti-Trump news site said Mr. O’Handley asked “a question of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that was more Trumpian propaganda regarding the potential death of habeas corpus than independent inquiry.”Yet like other new media, Mr. O’Handley asked some tough questions, too, inquiring about the long-promised Department of Justice files on convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein — a question few in the legacy media have posed. “Do you have any updates from the DOJ or the FBI on when those files are expected to be released?” he asked. “And also, when might we start seeing some arrests of the client list?”Others in the new media, though, have asked heavily biased questions, drawing scorn from the legacy media. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump took a question from Jordan Conradson, a reporter with the far-right Gateway Pundit, which declared bankruptcy after it was sued for posting numerous unproven election fraud stories after the 2020 election. Mr. Conradson asked about hundreds of mugshots of illegal migrant criminals that were planted on the White House grounds. “They’re trying to hide the mugshots that are featured on the front lawn of rapists, murderers, pedophiles. What do you think of that? Aren’t they proving to be the enemy of the people?”“Well, I guess they are. I guess they are, right? Thank you. Who are you with?” Mr. Trump said. Like it or not, the new media is here to stay, so the old media had better get used to it.

‘New Media’ in the White House Briefings Is Driving Old Media Batty

‘New Media’ in the White House Briefings Is Driving Old Media Batty

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