The White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) is an organization of journalists who cover the White House and the president of the United States. The WHCA was founded on February 25, 1914, by journalists in response to an unfounded rumor that a United States congressional committee would select which journalists could attend press conferences of President Woodrow Wilson.
The WHCA operates independently of the White House. Application for membership is made online and granted by the association on the basis of criteria. Historically, notable issues handled by the WHCA were the credentialing process, access to the president and physical conditions in the White House press briefing rooms. Its most high-profile activity is the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, which is traditionally attended by the president and covered by the news media.
In February 2025, the White House announced that the WHCA would no longer determine which outlets are allowed access to the president.
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Association leadership
The leadership of the White House Correspondents' Association for 2025–26 includes:
Officers
President: Weijia Jiang, CBS News
Vice President: Justin Sink, Bloomberg News
Treasurer: Jacqui Heinrich, Fox News
Secretary: Brian Bennett, Time
Board members
Sara Cook, CBS News
Andrew Harnik, Getty Images
Trevor Hunnicutt, Reuters
Courtney Subramanian, Bloomberg News
Karen Travers, ABC News
Executive Director
Steven Thomma
White House press room
The White House Correspondents' Association is responsible for assigning the seats and the standing room in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in the White House. Even though the press office issues the passes for each session of press briefing, the correspondents' association decides who sits where. The board of directors assigns news sources to certain positions, which change about each 3–4 years.
Most media providers have their own seat, but some share seats with other providers.
The association usually publishes the seating chart on its website every time a new one is decided and comes into effect.
White House Correspondents' Dinner
The association's annual dinner, begun in 1921, has become a Washington, D.C., tradition, and is traditionally attended by the president and vice president of the United States. The dinner is traditionally held on the evening of the last Saturday in April at the Washington Hilton.
Awards
Note: Award years represent the date the work was published/broadcast, which is always one year before the prize was awarded.
The Aldo Beckman Memorial Award
The Aldo Beckman Award for Journalistic Excellence is an annual award sponsored by the WHCA. Established in 1981, it recognizes "a correspondent who personifies the journalistic excellence and personal qualities of Aldo Beckman" for overall excellence in White House coverage. Described by CBS News as "one of journalism's most prestigious awards", past recipients include David E. Sanger, Mark Knoller, Glenn Thrush, Kenneth T. Walsh, and Carl M. Cannon.
Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure
The award was established in 1970 as the Merriman Smith Memorial Award for outstanding examples of deadline reporting. (Smith died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1970.) The award was renamed in 2022 after the WHCA determined that Smith had supported excluding Black and female journalists from membership in the National Press Club and from attending the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability
A $10,000 prize to "recognize an individual or newsgathering team for coverage of subjects and events of significant national or regional importance in line with the human and professional qualities exemplified by the late Katharine Graham, the distinguished former publisher of The Washington Post. Debuted in 2020.
Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage by Visual Journalists
$1,000 "award recognizes a video or photojournalist for uniquely covering the presidency from a journalistic standpoint, either at the White House or in the field. This could be breaking news, a scheduled event or feature coverage." Debuted in 2020.
Discontinued awards
Named in honor of the distinguished correspondent Edgar Allen Poe (1906–1998), a former WHCA president unrelated to the American fiction writer of the nearly identical name. Funded by the New Orleans Times-Picayune and Newhouse Newspapers, the award honored excellence in news coverage of subjects and events of significant national or regional importance to the American people. The Edgar A. Poe Memorial Award was presented from 1990 to 2019, when it was replaced by the Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability and the Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage by Visual Journalists.
Notable past winners of the award include Rochelle Sharpe, Marjie Lundstrom, Michael Tackett, Russell Carollo, Cheryl Reed, Michael Isikoff, Sam Roe, Sean Naylor, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, Marcus Stern, Megan Twohey, David Fahrenthold, and Norah O'Donnell.
Named in honor of Raymond Clapper (1892-1944) and given "to a journalist or team for distinguished Washington reporting." The award was presented from 1944 to 2003, usually at the WHCA dinner (although in the period 1951–1965 it was presented at the American Society of News Editors annual dinner).
In 2004, the award passed to the Scripps Howard National Journalism Awards. Under Scripps Howard, the Washington Reporting Raymond Clapper Award was presented until 2011, at which point it was discontinued.
Notable past winners of the Raymond Clapper Award included Ernie Pyle, Nicholas Lemann, Clark R. Mollenhoff, James Reston, Joseph Albright, Morton Mintz, Adam Liptak, Helene Cooper, Jean Heller, Newbold Noyes Jr., Thomas Lunsford Stokes, Tom Squitieri, Marcus Stern, Susan Feeney, Doris Fleeson, James Polk, James V. Risser, and William Neikirk.