The Republican National Convention won’t exclude journalists from this month’s event in Cleveland solely because they’ve been banned by the party’s presumptive nominee, the director of the House Daily Press Gallery told The Washington Examiner.
Despite Donald Trump having previously refused to offer campaign trail credentials to outlets including The Washington Post, Buzzfeed and Politico, among others, House Daily Press Gallery Director Annie Tin said in an interview published Tuesday that the presidential hopeful’s media blacklist won’t be taken into consideration during the convention.
“If they have made it through the credentialing process, yes,” Ms. Tin, a long-time C-SPAN producer, said when asked if outlets banned by the Trump campaign will be allowed to cover the GOP convention.
“Because right now, we have been designated the credentialing authority,” she added.
With regards to credentialing reporters ahead of the convention, Ms. Tin told the Washington Examiner that she reports to a board composed of five journalists, each serving staggered two-year terms, who work together to establish policy governing how press credentials are handed out.
“My job is to make sure that I execute the wishes of this board, and one of our chief responsibilities is to make sure that we credential bona fide journalists,” Ms. Tin added.
Relying on the House Daily Press Gallery for credentialing removes politics from the equation and ensures that journalists are excluded due to differences of opinion, she suggested.
“It takes [politics] out of it. And this is fascinating to discuss at this time when we’re dealing with the Trump campaign and some of the things that are happening with his campaign, banning journalists from participating and attending his events,” she added.
Indeed, Mr. Trump’s camp has routinely taken heat since the businessman declared his candidacy last June by repeatedly targeting the news media as a result of their coverage. In addition to The Post, Buzzfeed and Politico, other high-profile outlets that have been barred by the Trump campaign include the Des Moines Register, Univision and The Daily Beast.
“We were never a Trump favorite, but things got very frosty after we published a story last year about allegations that Ivana Trump made and later walked back about Donald Trump,” Noah Shachtman, the executive editor of The Daily Beast, told CNN last month. The author of that article “was the first of our reporters to be cut off,” he said, and “by the time the New Hampshire primary rolled around, even our freelancers were getting cut off.”
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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