On August 29th, 2024 the White House News Photographers Association sent the following letter to the Harris campaign. The letter was also endorsed by other media organizations impacted by the reduction of still photojournalist access to covering Vice President Harris’ presidential campaign.
Based on precedent, the letter details the WHNPA’s expectations for fair and free coverage of the campaign. It respectfully requests rectifying the situation as the campaign moves into its final months. The Constitution requires a free press, and the American people deserve transparency. Our respective duties are crucial to upholding these principles.
Click here for a downloadable copy of the letter.
To:
Ernesto Apreza, Special Assistant to the President & Press Secretary to the Vice President
Kirsten Allen, Deputy Assistant to the President and Communications Director
CC:
Brian Fallon, Harris for President
Kevin Munoz, Harris for President
Lauren Hitt, Harris for President
Daniel Wessel, Harris for President, Head of Advance
Eugene Daniels, White House Correspondents Association, President
August 29, 2024
Dear Ernesto Apreza, Kirsten Allen, Brian Fallon, Kevin Munoz, Lauren Hitt and Eugene Daniels,
The White House News Photographers Association (WHNPA) is a 105-year-old member organization of visual journalists based in the Washington, DC region.
Since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, the travel pool has been reduced from thirteen to nine, an unprecedented reduction in access to a major presidential party candidate. Every other representative of the press pool has been allowed to continue traveling without interruption, while the four independent news photographer seats have been downgraded to one.
The WHNPA strongly calls on the Harris campaign to reconsider the number of media seats allowed on Air Force 2. It is our understanding the campaign has required the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) to reduce the number of media seats on Air Force Two to allow for additional security staff needed for the Vice President.
While we understand the reduction is due to security, further accommodations are required to maintain a fair and free press. We strongly encourage the Harris campaign to add an additional chase plane to accommodate photojournalists and journalists assigned to report on the campaign. If a chaser plane with additional journalists (of all media formats) is not made available to accommodate, we strongly encourage the WHCA to reallocate the current seats in a manner that is fair to photojournalists and further representative of the travel pool – which always has four traveling photojournalists.
Campaigns have historically accommodated an expanded travel pool, including photographers from the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence-France Presse, The New York Times, Getty Images and The Washington Post. This additional access is of great service to the American people during general election cycles.
Our organization and its members have decades of institutional experience covering Presidential campaigns. We are the journalists behind the most significant and historical photographs of the President and presidential nominees. The WHNPA believes that still photography journalists should be treated as equal members of the travel press pool and kindly requests access be restored immediately. Still photojournalists are the most impacted by the reduction of available seats while covering the Harris campaign.
Still photographer members of the WHNPA and the White House Correspondents Association have captured the most important images in politics, and their photographs have come to define pivotal moments in American history. The traveling press pool is incomplete without a full complement of visual journalists. Our print, television, multimedia and even radio member organizations depend on these images to provide a complete visual report of the campaign across every platform. The coverage suffers from our absence and is currently noticed and questioned by those who rely on it.
In the end, with an abundance of news coverage from presidential candidates and misinformation, it is the American citizens and voters who rely on independent visual journalism for factual representation of the 2024 Presidential campaigns that will ultimately lose out by this reduction of access.
Sincerely,
Jessica Koscielniak
White House News Photographers Association, President
This letter has been endorsed by the following media organizations:
Agence France-Presse
Associated Press
Reuters
Getty Images
The New York Times
The Washington Post