White House

White House press secretary Sean Spicer is leading a search for his own replacement on the briefing room podium as part of a larger plan to shake up the White House communications operation, according to two people with knowledge of the effort. Last week, Spicer and Reince Priebus, White House chief of staff, reached out to Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham about the role of press secretary and Daily Mail editor David Martosko about the role of communications director, according to a White House official.

What’s the purpose of assembling 70 or so journalists (in a room that seats 49), and letting them ask questions that aren’t really answered? What’s the deal with not showing the White House’s public face to the public itself? Whose interest is served by this kind of non-exchange of non-information?

President Trump’s White House communications director, Mike Dubke, is leaving his position after just three months on the job, according to multiple reports. Dubke, who had been helping the Trump administration reorganize the White House press office, reportedly told Trump that he would stay on through the end of Trump’s first overseas trip, which ended last weekend.

Several officials say White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is no longer expected to do a daily, on-camera briefing after Trump’s foreign trip, with Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders appearing behind the lectern more frequently.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former first lady of San Francisco and current Fox News host, is in conversations with the Trump administration about becoming White House press secretary, she said in an exclusive interview. Guilfoyle said the idea of her taking the job or another press role in the White House has been “raised by a number of people” in the Trump administration, although she declined to go into specifics.

The rumor mill in Washington is working overtime on how long White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer will keep his job as the top spokesman of President Trump’s administration. The White House has been quick to push back against speculation that Spicer may be replaced but continues to battle reports that the president is considering a major staff shakeup and speculation that Trump is dissatisfied with Spicer’s performance.

Journalists and open-government advocates derided the Trump administration’s decision last week not to release visitor logs to the White House, in a break with policy established by the Obama administration.

Using Skype, the video-call app, the White House has extended the daily question-and-answer sessions for the first time to people in far-flung locales. The innovation, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in an interview, “has been very successful bringing in additional reporters beyond the Beltway.” Except that many of the people who have occupied the “Skype seat” aren’t reporters at all.

Andrea Mitchell has covered seven White Houses. Then came Trump. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” The White House staff, she says, uses the briefing room as a daily disinformation machine and the president and secretary of state outright attempt to undermine the ability of reporters to do their job.

The White House is ramping up its search for a new communications director in an effort to lighten the load of embattled White House press secretary Sean Spicer, multiple sources told CNN. A source familiar with internal communications said President Donald Trump is disappointed in Spicer’s performance during the first two weeks of the administration.

Now that Sean Spicer has been tapped for the job of President-elect Trump’s press secretary, Josh Earnest, the current man in the job, has a few tips for him. “Make sure you know where the president’s head’s at,” Earnest said, “because your ability to faithfully represent his point of view is critically important.”

Sinclair was the only broadcaster to be invited to the White House workshop, “Drones and the Future of Aviation.” The station group will promote drone safety through the “Know Before You Fly” campaign by broadcasting public service announcements on its stations.

RTDNA and more than 50 other journalism and open government organizations are working together to urge the Obama administration to loosen restrictions on public information. In a letter to the president, the groups again expressed the concerns they raised a year ago, over restrictions placed on White House staffers and their communication with journalists.

A press briefing Tuesday with White House press secretary Josh Earnest was interrupted shortly before 2 p.m. by a bomb threat that forced the evacuation of the briefing room. Reporters and photographers filed out, only to return around 2:45 p.m. after the Secret Service had swept the room. Once White House reporters were back in their seats, the questions to Earnest about evacuation protocol began. Jonathan Karl of ABC News had a very pointed question/allegation: “Hey Josh … who covered up the cameras in this room? ‘Cause the cameras were covered up or pointed down.”

The White House is removing a federal regulation that subjects its Office of Administration to the Freedom of Information Act, making official a policy under Presidents Bush and Obama to reject requests for records to that office. The White House said the cleanup of FOIA regulations is consistent with court rulings that hold that the office is not subject to the transparency law. The office handles, among other things, White House record-keeping duties like the archiving of emails.

The White House said Monday a no-fly zone the U.S. government imposed over Ferguson, Mo., for nearly two weeks in August should not have restricted helicopters for news organizations that wanted to operate in the area to cover violent protests there.

A coalition of news organizations said Thursday that the White House limits on access raise constitutional concerns about infringement on First Amendment press freedoms and have “a direct and adverse impact on the public’s ability to independently monitor and see what its government is doing.”

Recent presidents have limited their use of the Oval Office address, increasingly opting for other modes of communication as cable and the Web compete for viewers’ attention.

The Obama administration would like to see greater protections for reporters who refuse to identify sources, even as officials faced anger over the seizure of Associated Press records.

With more technology, and fewer resources at many media companies, the balance of power between the White House and press has tipped unmistakably toward the government. This is an arguably dangerous development, and one that the Obama White House — fluent in digital media and no fan of the mainstream press — has exploited. And future presidents from both parties will undoubtedly copy and expand on this approach.