News organisations criticised by President Trump among those blocked from 'gaggle' with Press Secretary Sean Spicer.
The White House has blocked a number of news outlets from covering a question-and-answer session with spokesman Sean Spicer held in place of the daily press briefing.
Media organisations including The New York Times, CNN, Politico and Al Jazeera were blocked from joining the informal, on-the-record, off-camera press briefing on Friday, referred to as a "gaggle".
Some of the blocked outlets, including CNN, have been singled out by President Donald Trump as sources of "fake news".
Spicer invited only a pool of news organisations that represents and shares reporting with the larger press corps.
Journalists from several right-leaning outlets were also allowed into Spicer’s office, including the website Breitbart News, whose former executive chairman, Steve Bannon, is Trump's chief strategist.
When additional news organisations attempted to gain access, they were not allowed to enter.
Al Jazeera's Kimberly Halkett, reporting from the White House, was among those asked to leave.
"This is really the latest in an ongoing media war with this White House," she said.
"Some of those who are concerned about this are outlets that have been accused by the White House of reporting unfavourably, namely that they reported that the White House recently tried to deploy the FBI to counter some negative reporting with regard to whether or not there had been contact between the White House and Russian officials."
Typically, the daily briefing is televised and open to all news organisations credentialed to cover the White House.
The Associated Press and Time magazine chose not to participate in the gaggle after Spicer restricted the number of journalists present.
'Don't need everything on camera'
Spicer said the White House held a gaggle rather than an open briefing because Trump made a major speech earlier in the day.
"Our job is to make sure that we're responsive to folks in the media," he said during the briefing. "We want to make sure we answer your questions, but we don't need to do everything on camera every day."
READ MORE: Trump declares media 'the enemy of the American people'
In a statement, White House Correspondents' Association President Jeff Mason said the group was "protesting strongly" against how the gaggle was handled by the White House and that the issue would be discussed further with officials.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mason added that press access to the White House since Trump took office in January has been "good".
"There's some irony to that statement because the tone set by President Trump about the media of course has been very negative," he said, "but we have had many opportunities to ask questions, both of the president and Sean Spicer, his press secretary, and to see and take pictures basically of how this White House governs. That is a positive thing and a trend we hope will continue."
After The New York Times was barred from attending the gaggle, its executive editor, Dean Baquet, said that "nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties."
CNN described the move as an "unacceptable development by the Trump White House".
"Apparently this is how they retaliate when you report facts they don't like. We'll keep reporting regardless," the broadcaster said in a statement.
The Committee to Protect Journalists also condemned the move by the White House.
"We are concerned by the decision to bar reporters from a press secretary briefing," CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said in a statement. "The US should be promoting press freedom and access to information."
Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies
On Friday White House Press Secretary  held an informal "gaggle" press briefing but made a point of excluding certain news outlets.  The White House's decision has drawn ire from across the field, including organizations invited to the briefing, such as  and ''''.
Sean Spicer, from file.  
''The New York Times'' and CNN, as well as the BBC, '''', ''Al Jazeera'', the '''', , '''', and ''The Daily Mail'', were all barred from attending the meeting, while Reuters, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, Bloomberg, and the heavily conservative news outlets , , and '''' were admitted.  '''', the Associated Press, and some other outlets were invited to the briefing but .

Spicer held the meeting in his office rather than the usual briefing room. He told the press the smaller gathering was because Trump had already made a large speech earlier in the day. "We want to make sure we answer your questions, but we don't need to do everything on camera every day."  However, he also criticized media coverage of the Trump administration, which President Trump has cited as unfair. "We're going to aggressively push back," one reporter recorded him saying at the gaggle. "We're just not going to sit back and let, you know, false narratives, false stories, inaccurate facts get out there."

This meeting took place the day after CNN issued a report claiming the White House had asked high-level employees at the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to rebut a story in ''The New York Times'' about the Trump administration's alleged ties with Russia and Vladimir Putin.

"Apparently this is how they retaliate when you report facts they don't like. We'll keep reporting regardless," said CNN in a statement.

"Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties," said ''New York Times'' executive editor Dean Baquet. "We strongly protest the exclusion of ''The New York Times'' and the other news organizations. Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest."

"While we strongly object to the White House's apparent attempt to punish news outlets whose coverage it does not like," said Buzzfeed editor-in-chief , "we won't let these latest antics distract us from the work of continuing to cover this administration fairly and aggressively."

BBC bureau chief Paul Denahar was more formal: "We understand there may be occasions when, due to space or circumstances, the White House restricts press events to the established pool.  However, what happened today did not fit into that pattern. On this occasion selected media were allowed to attend the briefing and the selected media, including the BBC, were not."

'''' contributor David French also criticized the decision: "The only reason to exclude a news organization from a press briefing should be space available, with space allocated on a viewpoint-neutral basis. ... It's one thing to bash the press. It's another thing entirely to take steps to deny access to disfavored outlets. When it comes to access, Trump needs to be better than Obama, not worse." He combined these remarks with a discussion of the Obama administration's relationship with Fox News.

Some of the news organizations invited to Spicer's meeting also opposed the exclusion of their peers:

"Some at CNN and ''New York Times'' stood with Fox News when the Obama admin attacked us and tried to exclude us," said Fox anchor  via Twitter, "a White House gaggle should be open to all credentialed orgs."

"''The Wall Street Journal'' strongly objects to the White House's decision to bar certain media outlets from today's gaggle," added a representative for the newspaper. "Had we known at the time, we would not have participated and we will not participate in such closed briefings in the future."

The  took a milder view: "We're not happy with how things went today," said association president Jeff Mason. "I don't think that people should rush to judgment to suggest that this is the start of a big crackdown on media access."

Donald Trump has stated the mainstream media portrayed the first month of his presidency unfairly, calling some of their reports "fake news" and the press themselves the "enemy of the people" and insisting they refrain from using anonymous sources. "I'm against the people that make up stories and make up sources," he told the  in Washington D.C.

"President Trump's calls for an end to anonymous sources was alarming. It is not the job of political leaders to determine how journalists should conduct their work, and sets a terrible example for the rest of the world, where sources often must remain anonymous to preserve their own lives," said Joel Simon of the .