Trump team bars 'enemy' media from press briefing

Several major news outlets found themselves blocked from attending a White House briefing with press secretary Sean Spicer, in the latest sign of worsening relations between the Trump administration and the media attempting to cover it.

The New York Times, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, Buzzfeed and Politico were among the news organisations prevented from attending on Friday, according to posts by reporters from those outlets on Twitter, as were several foreign news organisations.

"This is an unacceptable development by the Trump White House," CNN said in a statement. "Apparently this is how they retaliate when you report facts they don't like."

"Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties," said New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet.

"We strongly protest the exclusion of The New York Times and the other news organizations. Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest."

The Associated Press and Time were invited in, but refused to take part in protest.

The White House was said to have invited press organisations to the event.

The three major broadcast networks - CBS, ABC, and NBC - were invited to the briefing, as were several news outlets that play to a conservative readership, such as Breitbart, The Washington Times and One America News Network.

The manoeuvre threatens to cut off some of the nation's most prominent and esteemed news organisations from a daily event that has for years been seen as ingrained in the White House press beat.

It also puts a metaphorical barrier between a "gaggle" that allows for the dissemination of information by the President of the United States to the world and the public that elected him to the office.

"They are the enemy of the people because they have no sources," President Donald Trump said before banning his least-favoured news outlets. "They just make them up when there are none."

He also said "nobody" loves the First Amendment more than he does. The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees US citizens freedom of speech.

Reuters / Newshub.