Weijia Jiang
Role at the time: CBS News senior White House correspondent and former president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, interviewed on Fox News
Statement summary
Interviewed by her successor as White House Correspondents’ Association president, Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich, CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang said the ban is not “a tantrum by three media outlets” but a public concern, because access, once opened to an outlet, cannot be withdrawn “just because you don’t like what they are saying.” She said the ban would set a precedent that future administrations could follow, and that “America cannot have state TV.”
“I think we have to be very clear about what this is and is not. This is not a tantrum by three media outlets who are upset because they can't get into the White House or the Oval Office. This is a serious concern for the public because an attack on one outlet is an attack on everyone, no matter where that outlet falls on the political spectrum. It is limiting the amount of information that reporters inside can gather, can excavate, to give back to the public so that people at home can make informed decisions, especially during an election year. So I understand when people point at journalists and say, well, you know, it's not your right to be inside the White House. But the problem, as Jonathan just addressed, is that once you open up that access for any news outlet, you can't take it away just because you don't like what they are saying.”
Why we used this label
On Trump’s decision to exclude CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House access because of their coverage, Jiang condemns the exclusion, arguing that it harms the public rather than the three outlets, that access cannot be withdrawn because of disagreement with coverage, and that it sets a dangerous precedent. No competing label plausibly applies.