Former President Barack Obama on President Trump's White House press ban: "I’m trying to think what would have happened if I had said, you know what, Fox News, you’re out of here! It’s unimaginable!"
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In October 2009, Obama White House officials deliberately tried to exclude Fox News from a multi-network interview pool with the TARP pay czar. Emails show them saying “we’d prefer if you skip Fox.” Other networks refused to proceed without Fox, so it was reversed. Aides later confirmed a willingness to freeze Fox out of interviews.
The Obama administration regularly barred independent photographers from many events and released only official White House photos instead. Nearly 40 news outlets, including the WHCA, protested this in 2013 as replacing independent journalism with visual press releases.