Two people who spoke to The Daily Beast about this said that the White House wants to make it harder for the media to get “hard passes.” This would mean that a lot of journalists would have to ask for limited day passes.
Simon Ateba, who covers the White House for Today News Africa, might be impacted by the supposed change in the rules. A week before the Daily Beast article, Ateba had asked press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre why he hadn’t been asked to start a news conference in seven months. Because of this, the rest of the news broadcast was thrown into chaos. Ateba could be in danger, along with other independent writers and thinkers.
Our sources say that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre would like to see the Obama-era registration rules for hard passes brought back quickly. With these passes, reporters can go anywhere they want on the White House grounds, but the filing process can take months. (Other journalists would request temporary day passes through the press office.)
During the Obama era, press passes were mostly only given to journalists who had been cleared by Congress or the Supreme Court. To be considered for recognition, applicants must write full-time for a well-known news outlet and visit Washington, DC often.
Confider has heard from trustworthy sources that the press office has been thinking about making the rules for the conference room stricter for more than a year now. This is because reporters like Ateba keep making noise and causing problems.
Ateba explained in a long tweet earlier this month that the White House Correspondents Association had turned down his membership application because they “did not see evidence” that he was “employed on the editorial staff of a newspaper, periodical, wire service, radio, TV, or other news gathering organization that reports on the White House.”