2026-09-20T16:00:29.135Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/20/politics/white-house-press-pool-trump
这里是全球最具权力的办公室，数百名记者都希望对其进行报道。但要如何做到？
答案就是白宫记者团随行小组（White House press pool）。
自富兰克林·D·罗斯福时代起，白宫记者、摄影师和技术人员就依托一套体系，能够随美国总统的行踪开展报道：他们会指派一个小型团队——即随行小组——作为更大规模记者团的代表。
这种安排同时解决了两大难题：一是空间问题——椭圆形办公室或“空军一号”上容纳不了太多记者；二是经费问题——每天在白宫和随总统出行时部署报道团队成本高昂，对小型媒体机构而言尤为沉重。
这套体系依赖新闻媒体与白宫之间的合作，白宫会允许记者进入空间有限的区域。
随行小组制度随时间不断演变，吸纳了不同类型的媒体机构，以适应美国人获取新闻方式的变化。但其核心使命基本未变：亲眼见证总统的言行、尽可能当场提问，并将相关信息和影像分享给其他媒体的同行，最终传递给公众。
如今，随着唐纳德·特朗普总统禁止三家媒体机构——CNN、MS NOW和《政客》（Politico）进入白宫，这一使命正面临威胁。
罗斯福去世时，随行小组记者身在佐治亚州沃姆斯普林斯；约翰·F·肯尼迪遇刺时，他们身在达拉斯；罗纳德·里根遇刺时，他们在华盛顿希尔顿酒店外；乔治·H·W·布什、巴拉克·奥巴马和特朗普秘密前往偏远战区时，他们也随队待在“空军一号”上。
CNN原计划在周一担任电视随行小组，并被指定为随特朗普本周前往纽约出席联合国大会年度会议的电视报道网络。
目前尚不清楚特朗普的禁令将如何影响随行小组的职责。针对某一家机构的禁令可能彻底颠覆这套体系，对电视报道领域尤其如此，因为剩余媒体机构可能面临人员配备或资金限制，难以持续承担跟踪美国最高权力办公室全天候报道的重任。
谁是随行小组成员？由谁决定？
随行小组包括文字记者、广播电视记者和静态摄影师。小组规模根据其执行任务的场所而异。例如，“空军一号”的媒体舱仅有13个座位。
在该制度存在的大部分时间里，随行小组的组成由记者们自行掌控。白宫记者协会会指派文字记者向覆盖总统报道的全体记者团队发送书面快讯。广播电视和广播机构轮流负责录制总统活动，并将素材分发给其他媒体。随行小组的媒体机构会将其派驻记者的姓名告知白宫，以协调后勤事宜。
也曾出现过白宫出于实际操作或安保原因限制随行小组成员的情况。
2001年9月11日，美国遭遇袭击后，白宫缩减了随布什前往当时未公开地点的随行小组规模。在部分小组成员的压力下，他们坚持要求允许少数记者登上“空军一号”，布什的助手最终允许一半小组成员留在机上。
2023年拜登前往乌克兰进行秘密战时行程时，仅有一名静态摄影师和一名文字记者陪同他从波兰乘火车入境。
还有其他几届政府试图限制特定媒体机构的采访权限的案例。奥巴马政府曾短暂尝试将福克斯新闻排除在当时向其他四家电视联播网开放的、与不良资产救助计划（TARP）行政长官肯尼斯·费恩伯格的访谈之外。但其他媒体的强烈抗议促使福克斯重新获得参与资格，且奥巴马团队从未试图将福克斯排除在每日电视联播网随行小组之外。
特朗普2025年重返白宫后，其新闻办公室对随行小组的运作方式进行了调整。曾在随行小组中拥有固定席位的通讯社，包括路透社和美联社，不再获得每日采访权限，但可继续参与轮流安排。
特朗普限制美联社进入“空军一号”和椭圆形办公室等区域后，美联社提起诉讼。下级法院认定特朗普对该媒体进行了不当报复，但诉讼仍在进行中。
白宫还邀请了此前未加入随行小组的媒体机构——其中许多是右翼媒体——轮流参与随行报道活动，并允许他们登上“空军一号”。
电视随行小组制度基本未变。五大联播网——ABC、CBS、CNN、福克斯和NBC——轮流承担每日随行报道任务，每组配备三名工作人员：摄像师、音频技术员和制片人或记者。
尽管特朗普政府为随行报道活动增加了更多电视联播网的摄制组，包括来自小型右翼媒体的团队，但主要电视联播网的轮流制度仍得以保留。
任何随行小组成员的基本职责都是作为覆盖白宫报道的全体记者团队的耳目。这些媒体机构随后会将信息传递给各自的读者、观众和听众。
对文字记者而言，这意味着详细记录总统的所有言行，并将其整理成书面快讯，通过电子邮件发送给全体记者团队。
这类快讯可能包含日常细节，比如总统车队何时离开白宫前往打高尔夫球，也可能涉及全球重要新闻，比如安全事件或暗杀企图。
对广播电视记者而言，工作还包括技术环节。电视随行摄制组会拍摄总统活动，并将素材实时分发给其他小组成员。摄像师和音频技术员捕捉总统的影像和声音，制片人或记者则通过电话协调信号传输、记录活动细节并向总统提问。
随行小组的工作往往耗时漫长，有时甚至十分繁重。白宫会告知小组成员早上抵达白宫的时间（报到时间），并宣布报道活动何时结束（结束时间）。其间的时间往往用于等待，要么在白宫简报室、总统车队的面包车里，要么在国际峰会的走廊里。
由于突发新闻事件时有发生，随行小组成员必须时刻准备好，随时能够开始向同行传递信息。
他们必须保持高度专注，因为他们分享的信息将被全球各地的新闻报道所采用。
作为随行小组的一部分，各大新闻机构需自行承担搭乘“空军一号”、入住酒店或乘坐政府提供车辆的费用。费用按照白宫制定的公式计算，并向新闻机构结算。
总统报道成本高昂，根据目的地不同，多日行程可能让随行小组内的媒体机构花费数万美元。
随行小组的其他开支还包括加班工资、设备成本以及通过卫星或高速互联网传输视频的费用。
由于随行小组的人员安排是轮换的——因此费用也由各方分摊——总成本会被分散。数十家媒体机构参与文字记者的轮换，不过在“空军一号”上执行任务时，日常成本更高，参与的机构也更少。
五大电视联播网中的每一家，每五天就要承担一次随行报道的费用。将一家联播网从轮换名单中移除，理论上会让剩余四家联播网多出20%的随行报道任务，从而增加这些媒体机构的报道成本和人员负担。
本文已更新补充更多细节。
What is the White House press pool, and why is it now under threat?
2026-09-20T16:00:29.135Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/20/politics/white-house-press-pool-trump
It’s the most powerful office in the world, and hundreds of journalists want to cover it. But how?
Enter the White House press pool.
Since the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, White House reporters, photographers and technicians have utilized a system to cover the American president wherever he goes by assigning a small group — the pool — to act as representatives of the larger press corps.
The arrangement solves both a space problem — only so many reporters can fit into the Oval Office or Air Force One — and a financial one: it gets expensive to field teams at the White House and on the road every day, particularly for smaller outlets.
The system relies on cooperation between the news media and the White House, which agrees to allow reporters into areas that can only hold so many people.
The pool has evolved over time, adding different types of media organizations to accommodate shifts in how Americans consume news. But the mission has largely remained the same: to bear witness in person to the president’s words and actions, ask questions when possible and share that information and imagery with colleagues at other outlets, and by extension the public.
Now, with President Donald Trump banning three outlets — CNN, MS NOW and Politico — from the White House, that mission is under threat.
Pool reporters were in Warm Springs, Georgia, when Roosevelt died; in Dallas when John F. Kennedy was assassinated; outside the Washington Hilton when Ronald Reagan was shot and aboard Air Force One when George Bush, Barack Obama and Trump made secret visits to far-flung war zones.
CNN is scheduled to act as the television pool on Monday, and was assigned as the pool TV network that would accompany Trump during a planned trip to New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly this week.
It isn’t yet clear how Trump’s ban would affect pooling responsibilities. A ban targeting one organization could upend the system entirely, particularly for television, as the remaining outlets face staffing or financial constraints that make it untenable to support round-the-clock coverage of the highest office in the land.
Who is in the pool, and who decides?
The pool consists of print reporters, broadcast journalists and still photographers. The size of the pool varies by which space in which it is operating. On Air Force One, for example, there are 13 seats in the press cabin.
For most of its existence, the composition of the pool was controlled by journalists themselves. The White House Correspondents Association assigned print reporters to send written dispatches to the wider group of reporters who cover the presidency. Television and radio outlets rotated which network would record the president and distribute the material to others. Outlets in the pool communicated the names of their pool reporters to the White House in order to coordinate logistics.
There have been occasions when the White House limited who can be in the pool for practical or security reasons.
On September 11, 2001, the White House reduced the size of the pool that accompanied Bush to then-undisclosed locations after the nation came under attack. Under pressure from some pool members, who insisted a few reporters be allowed to fly on Air Force One, Bush’s aides allowed half the pool to remain on board.
When Biden traveled to Ukraine in 2023 in what was a covert war-time journey, only a still photographer and print reporter accompanied him on the train ride in from Poland.
There have been other instances of administrations attempting to limit certain outlets’ access. The Obama administration briefly tried to exclude Fox News from a round of interviews with then-TARP administrator Kenneth Feinberg that was offered to the other four networks in the TV pool. But outcry from the other networks led to Fox being reinstated. And the Obama team never sought to exclude Fox from acting as the daily network TV pool.
When Trump returned to office in 2025, his press office enacted changes to how the press pool would work. Wire services that once had permanent slots in the pool, including Reuters and the Associated Press, were no longer given daily access, but were allowed to continue in a rotation.
The AP filed a lawsuit after Trump restricted its access to spaces like Air Force One and the Oval Office. A lower court found Trump had improperly retaliated against the outlet but the lawsuit is still ongoing.
The White House also invited outlets that had not previously been in the pool, many of them right-leaning, to join pooled events as part of the rotation, and to travel aboard Air Force One.
The television pool system remained largely unchanged. Five networks — ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC — rotate daily responsibility for covering pool events with a three-person crew: a camera operator, an audio technician and a producer or reporter.
While the Trump White House added additional television network crews to pool events, including from smaller right-leaning outlets, the major TV network pool rotation remained intact.
The basic responsibility for any press pooler is to act as the eyes and ears for the larger group of reporters and organizations that cover the White House. Those outlets then convey the information to their readers, viewers and listeners.
For print reporters, that means taking detailed notes of everything the president says or does, and compiling it into a written dispatch that is shared over email with the larger group.
That can include mundane details, like exactly what time the president’s motorcade leaves the White House for a round of golf, or news of global importance, like a security episode or assassination attempt.
For broadcast journalists, there is also technical work involved. TV pool crews film the president and distribute the material live to the other members. As the camera operator and audio tech capture the president’s image and sound, the producer or reporter coordinates the feed over the phone, composes notes on the event and asks the president questions.
Pool duty is often long and sometimes onerous. The White House tells pool members what time to be at the White House in the morning (the call time) and announces when coverage opportunities have ended (a lid). The time in between is often spent waiting, either in the White House briefing room, in a motorcade van or in the hallways of an international summit.
Because events often arise unexpectedly, pool members are always expected to be ready at a moment’s notice to begin transmitting information to their colleagues.
And they must remain sharp, with the knowledge that the information they share will be used in news reports around the world.
Major news outlets pay their own way when flying aboard Air Force One, staying in hotels or traveling in vehicles provided by the government as part of the pool. The costs are determined using formulas set by the White House, and are billed back to news organizations.
Presidential coverage is costly, and multi-day trips can cost tens of thousands of dollars for the outlets in the pool, depending on the destination.
Other costs are also incurred as part of the pool setup, including overtime pay, the price of equipment and costs to transmit video over satellites or high-speed internet.
Because outlets rotate who is in the pool — and thus responsible for the costs — the price tag is spread out. Dozens of outlets participate in the print pool rotation, though fewer travel on Air Force One where the daily costs are higher.
Each network in the five-network television pool is responsible for the costs of pooling every five days. Removing a network from the pool rotation would, in theory, create 20% more pool days for the remaining four networks, thereby increasing the coverage costs and staffing burdens for those outlets.
This story has been updated with additional details.