New York Times, CNN, others barred from press briefing

[Jenny A]

Although the president has the legal right to give access to whomever he likes, or no have press conferences at all if he wishes, it's pretty clear that this was done out of simple spite.

I'm not even sure he's got the legal right. Where I live, government agencies and the government aren't allowed to refuse commenting to the press or to make a selection of whom they're talking to. They're accountable to the public and refusing to talk to the media is actually breaking the law.

Might be that American legislation is different.

I don't know what the press laws are in Austria, but he hasn't and can't prohibit commenting. What he has done is denied access to himself and his spokespersons at press conferences. To do that to a large well known media outlet is unprecedented here. It is an attempt to both duck questions and deligitimise the outlets. As such, it is unprecedented. Fortunately, it will probably blow up in his face as those outlets can still comment and the more he attempts to deligitimise those outlets the more their readership grows. He tried this before during his campaign and relented for that very reason.