What is the White House press pool, and why is it now under threat?

By Kevin Liptak, CNN

(CNN) — It’s the most powerful office in the world, and hundreds of journalists want to cover it. But how?

Enter the White House press pool.

Since the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, White House reporters, photographers and technicians have utilized a system to cover the American president wherever he goes by assigning a small group — the pool — to act as representatives of the larger press corps.

The arrangement solves both a space problem — only so many reporters can fit into the Oval Office or Air Force One — and a financial one: it gets expensive to field teams at the White House and on the road every day, particularly for smaller outlets.

The system relies on cooperation between the news media and the White House, which agrees to allow reporters into areas that can only hold so many people.

The pool has evolved over time, adding different types of media organizations to accommodate shifts in how Americans consume news. But the mission has largely remained the same: to bear witness in person to the president’s words and actions, ask questions when possible and share that information and imagery with colleagues at other outlets, and by extension the public.

Now, with President Donald Trump banning three outlets — CNN, MS NOW and Politico — from the White House, that mission is under threat.

Pool reporters were in Warm Springs, Georgia, when Roosevelt died; in Dallas when John F. Kennedy was assassinated; outside the Washington Hilton when Ronald Reagan was shot and aboard Air Force One when George Bush, Barack Obama and Trump made secret visits to far-flung war zones.

CNN is scheduled to act as the television pool on Monday, and was assigned as the pool TV network that would accompany Trump during a planned trip to New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly this week.

It isn’t yet clear how Trump’s ban would affect pooling responsibilities. A ban targeting one organization could upend the system entirely, particularly for television, as the remaining outlets face staffing or financial constraints that make it untenable to support round-the-clock coverage of the highest office in the land.

Who is in the pool, and who decides?

The pool consists of print reporters, broadcast journalists and still photographers. The size of the pool varies by which space in which it is operating. On Air Force One, for example, there are 13 seats in the press cabin.

For most of its existence, the composition of the pool was controlled by journalists themselves. The White House Correspondents Association assigned print reporters to send written dispatches to the wider group of reporters who cover the presidency. Television and radio outlets rotated which network would record the president and distribute the material to others. Outlets in the pool communicated the names of their pool reporters to the White House in order to coordinate logistics.

There have been occasions when the White House limited who can be in the pool for practical or security reasons.

On September 11, 2001, the White House reduced the size of the pool that accompanied Bush to then-undisclosed locations after the nation came under attack. Under pressure from some pool members, who insisted a few reporters be allowed to fly on Air Force One, Bush’s aides allowed half the pool to remain on board.

When Biden traveled to Ukraine in 2023 in what was a covert war-time journey, only a still photographer and print reporter accompanied him on the train ride in from Poland.

There have been other instances of administrations attempting to limit certain outlets’ access. The Obama administration briefly tried to exclude Fox News from a round of interviews with then-TARP administrator Kenneth Feinberg that was offered to the other four networks in the TV pool. But outcry from the other networks led to Fox being reinstated. And the Obama team never sought to exclude Fox from acting as the daily network TV pool.

When Trump returned to office in 2025, his press office enacted changes to how the press pool would work. Wire services that once had permanent slots in the pool, including Reuters and the Associated Press, were no longer given daily access, but were allowed to continue in a rotation.

The AP filed a lawsuit after Trump restricted its access to spaces like Air Force One and the Oval Office. A lower court found Trump had improperly retaliated against the outlet but the lawsuit is still ongoing.

The White House also invited outlets that had not previously been in the pool, many of them right-leaning, to join pooled events as part of the rotation, and to travel aboard Air Force One.

The television pool system remained largely unchanged. Five networks — ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC — rotate daily responsibility for covering pool events with a three-person crew: a camera operator, an audio technician and a producer or reporter.

While the Trump White House added additional television network crews to pool events, including from smaller right-leaning outlets, the major TV network pool rotation remained intact.

What does the pool do?

The basic responsibility for any press pooler is to act as the eyes and ears for the larger group of reporters and organizations that cover the White House. Those outlets then convey the information to their readers, viewers and listeners.

For print reporters, that means taking detailed notes of everything the president says or does, and compiling it into a written dispatch that is shared over email with the larger group.

That can include mundane details, like exactly what time the president’s motorcade leaves the White House for a round of golf, or news of global importance, like a security episode or assassination attempt.

For broadcast journalists, there is also technical work involved. TV pool crews film the president and distribute the material live to the other members. As the camera operator and audio tech capture the president’s image and sound, the producer or reporter coordinates the feed over the phone, composes notes on the event and asks the president questions.

Pool duty is often long and sometimes onerous. The White House tells pool members what time to be at the White House in the morning (the call time) and announces when coverage opportunities have ended (a lid). The time in between is often spent waiting, either in the White House briefing room, in a motorcade van or in the hallways of an international summit.

Because events often arise unexpectedly, pool members are always expected to be ready at a moment’s notice to begin transmitting information to their colleagues.

And they must remain sharp, with the knowledge that the information they share will be used in news reports around the world.

Who pays for the pool?

Major news outlets pay their own way when flying aboard Air Force One, staying in hotels or traveling in vehicles provided by the government as part of the pool. The costs are determined using formulas set by the White House, and are billed back to news organizations.

Presidential coverage is costly, and multi-day trips can cost tens of thousands of dollars for the outlets in the pool, depending on the destination.

Other costs are also incurred as part of the pool setup, including overtime pay, the price of equipment and costs to transmit video over satellites or high-speed internet.

Because outlets rotate who is in the pool — and thus responsible for the costs — the price tag is spread out. Dozens of outlets participate in the print pool rotation, though fewer travel on Air Force One where the daily costs are higher.

Each network in the five-network television pool is responsible for the costs of pooling every five days. Removing a network from the pool rotation would, in theory, create 20% more pool days for the remaining four networks, thereby increasing the coverage costs and staffing burdens for those outlets.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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