News

The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) was founded in 1914 to promote excellence in journalism, robust reporting on the U. S. presidency, and support democracy through a free press. The White House Press Corps is made up of journalists credentialed by WHCA. This press pool provides reporting on the President’s daily activities and events. The UMD Libraries’ WHCA Pool Reports Collection consists of email pool reports created while covering the U.S. President and Vice President dating back to June 2020.

University of Maryland alumnus John A. Jenkins ’72, an accomplished publisher, journalist, author and entrepreneur, has donated a collection of historic papers to UMD Libraries documenting his remarkable career. The papers contain historical primary-source documents, and hundreds of hours of historical audio and video relating to major events of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, including interviews with Supreme Court Justices.

The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) has a long-established press corps, in which a smaller group of reporters follows the U.S. President— from the Oval Office, to Air Force One, to his motorcade—and disseminates their written pool reports to the rest of the press corps.

These reports can turn into front-page news, but plenty of what’s documented never gets national coverage. Still, the reports are a valuable view into the day-to-day workings of the White House and a fascinating repository of historical record.

The White House Correspondents' Association and the University of Maryland today announced the creation of a unique new window into the world of the president and the press — a permanent and ongoing digital, searchable archive of presidential pool reports produced by White House correspondents.

The collection will be produced through a partnership between the WHCA, the University of Maryland — including the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, the University Libraries and the College of Information Studies — and the Newseum Institute.