For people who don’t know how this works: there is a small ‘pool’ of reporters who travel w the president all the time. They share info (and broadcast tape) with other journalists. Sometimes an administration will give info to the pool to distribute more broadly.

This can mean, for example, that you will have an event and then an aide will give a background briefing, often attributable to a “senior administration official.” These are organized events. Different from reporters getting this info on their own.

An example: a trade deal is signed and then a negotiator walks a roomful of reporters through the thorny details.

All administrations offer information on background. To varying degrees. I can’t speak directly to this one bc I haven’t covered it. But in general I think admins use this practice WAY too often.

But in this case, there was an on camera briefing from the doctors (as you all saw). And then someone decided to give the pool a further statement.

For people who rail against anonymous sources, please note that this was an organized choice by the White House to put this information out on background.

Reporters are in a bind, because they desperately need this info, and also don’t want to get beaten by competitors. It’s a bad cycle. And in this case, it’s vital to public info.

The simplest solution, of course, is for the White House to go on the record.