The White House barred several news organisations, including The New York Times, CNN and BBC, from attending an informal press briefing on Saturday. United States President Donald Trump’s Press Secretary Sean Spicer handpicked reporters from media outlets, most of which are known for their far-right leanings, to attend an “off-camera gaggle” inside his West Wing office instead of the James S Brady press briefing room. The move intensifies the strain in relations between the Trump administration and media organisations.

“We don’t need to do everything on camera every day,” Spicer said about press briefings, which are televised and generally open to all news organisations credentialed to cover the White House. The development follows Trump’s denouncement of news organizations as “dishonest” purveyors of “fake news” at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he criticised journalists for claiming free speech rights.

“I am against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They should not be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name,” Trump had said at the conference. His statements were an apparent reference to news reports that said Chief of Staff Reince Priebus had asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to curb news coverage of the Trump campaign’s interaction with Russian intelligence, The Independent reported.

Reporters from Time Magazine and Associated Press chose to boycott the briefing despite getting a clearance, while The Wall Street Journal vowed to abstain from similar restricted briefings in the future. The administration said it felt “everyone was represented” by those in the pool, The New YorkTimes reported.

Among those allowed to attend the “off-camera gaggle” were news organisations that share information with the larger press corps as well as outlets including The Washington Times, One America News Network and Breitbart News, whose former executive chairman, Steve Bannon, is Trump’s chief strategist, AP reported.

The move was met with strong opposition from news organisations, the White House Correspondents’ Association and other sections of society. “Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties. We strongly protest the exclusion of The New York Times and the other news organisations. Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest,” Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times said in a statement.

Ever since he came to power Trump has attacked the media while accusing certain news outlets of providing “fake news”.