Karoline Leavitt invites content creators to the White House Press Briefing

In the delicate journalistic ecosystem of the White House James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, the sitting card is the whole status. Where a reporter sits, it all says from the coveted first row of well coiffed network correspondents to the back, a Siberia of smaller business like Cheddar and Gray TV.

So in a moment when Washington’s hierarchies are in Flux, it was no surprise on Tuesday when the Trump administration declared the seats could use a shaker.

A prominent chairman to the side of the press secretary’s lecturer, typically occupied by an official in the White House, will now be awarded a reporter from “new media”, a catchall category, which the administration said would include podcasters, influences social media and other creators of “news -related content.”

“It is important for our team that we share President Trump’s message everywhere and adapt our White House to the new media landscape in 2025,” said Karoline Leavitt, press secretary in traditional media institutions.

The message was intended to be rich in symbolism, although it also seemed to be something of a compromise.

Seats in the briefing room are traditionally assigned by the White House Correspondents’ Association, which negotiates with the president’s helpers about access and logistics. The rumors had flown that Mr. Trump may be seeking to expel news organizations that he claimed to dislike.

Instead, the administration avoided a clash – at least at least by simply adding a seat. (Correspondents’ Association has no jurisdiction over the row of chairs located to the side of the lecturer.)

Ms. Leavitt took on Tuesday her first questions from a couple of journalists whom she identified as members of the “new media.” However, both of them were relatively well known to Washington Press Corps.

The Leadoff questioner, Mike Allen, is a form of embodiment for the establishment media: a former reporter at the New York Times, the Washington Post and Politico, he is now one of the leaders of Axios, a popular Washington News site.

Axios had not previously had an assigned seat in the Brady Briefing Room, partly because the site’s editors often said they saw little value by participating. “We ask our journalists to never go to a press briefing in the White House,” Mr. Allen’s partner, Jim Vandehei, told Vanity Fair Two weeks ago.

The second question went to Matt Boyle, the Washington Bureau manager for Breitbart News, the right-wing marketing market. Breitbart’s journalists have regularly participated in the White House for many years, although it has never had an assigned place.

“We see today as a historic first step in the White House to correct the wrongs committed by the failed establishment and older media and the bankrupt institutions that protect them,” Mr. Boyle in an E email Tuesday.

For his third question, Ms. Leavitt to a more traditional news organization: Associated Press. Its reporter, Zeke Miller, asked Ms. Leavitt, whether she saw her role “as spokesmen on behalf of the president or did not deliver it -exposed truth?”

“I commit to telling the truth of this podium every single day,” Leavitt replied. She added, “While I promise to give the truth from this podium, we pray that all of you in this room will keep you to the same standard.”