White House Press Corps

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The White House press corps (or the White House press pool) is the group of journalists or correspondents usually stationed at the White House to cover White House press briefings and press releases.

The press briefings take place in the White House Press Room. There is no equivalent to the British Parliament's press gallery at the White House, either as the name of a place or a group of journalists, although at the U.S. Capitol journalists do occupy galleries of their own in the chambers of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Journalists who specialize in covering the upper and lower house of the U.S. Congress are known as congressional correspondents

The White House correspondents have often come under criticism for not challenging the people they cover more directly and for shirking its Fourth Estate responsibility. "The press in Washington got us into the Iraq War as much as the people that are controlling it," said legendary journalist Gay Talese in an interview. "They took information that was second-hand information, and they went along with it. It wasn't only the Judy Millers who got credit for being in the pocket of Ahmed Chalabi and Wolfowitz and the rest of those people. All of them. The New York Times bureau, not only Miller, but all of them."^[1]

The White House Press Secretary or a deputy generally holds a daily public news briefing.