White House launches news-style site to promote favorable coverage of Trump

The Trump administration has unveiled a news-style website that publishes exclusively positive coverage of the president on official White House servers.

White House Wire, published at the government domain WH.gov/wire, resembles the rightwing website the Drudge Report, with a list of headlines from right-leaning outlets praising the administration.

It also promotes White House press releases and social media posts by high-level officials.

The administration’s launch of what it describes as a news “wire” comes amid its ongoing efforts to restrict real news wire services from accessing the White House. Journalists with the Associated Press, the non-partisan news agency, remain barred from Oval Office events despite winning a recent court ruling that ordered the administration to re-admit it. Trevor McFadden, a district judge, ruled that the administration’s attempt to punish AP for not using the new term “Gulf of America” instead of the globally accepted “Gulf of Mexico” was a violation of the first amendment.

A White House official told Axios that the new site is “a place for supporters of the president’s agenda to get the real news”, describing it as providing “transparency”.

While previous administrations would often send emails promoting positive news coverage or interviews with senior officials, it appears to be the first time federal resources have been used to build a website that curates partisan news coverage.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has been attempting to sideline the established press in favor of friendlier media. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, now follows her regular press briefings with special ones exclusively for pro-Trump “Maga influencers”, who have used these sessions to ask softball questions and to echo administration talking points.

Matt Drudge, a conservative critic of Trump and founder of the Drudge Report site that seems to have inspired the government’s design, teased the launch on his own website and jokingly threatened a “$1tn lawsuit” in comments to Status News.