When the media stops holding people in power accountable, they are no different than idiots with megaphones. The press has special rights because accountability and informing the public was supposed to be their job.
Because it's cheaper and lets it survive.
The unspoken undercurrent is that Google and Facebook ate the ad spending that used to fund journalism, without replacing its function.
Google and Facebook don't fund journalism at scale -- that's why their profit margins stay at 23% & 40%.
Without revenue, reporters don't get paid, high quality reporting doesn't get done, and newsrooms grovel for any source of margin.
Which currently seems to be {minimal cost "journalism"} + {catering to power in exchange for access}.
In short: because it’s simply who they are by definition
From the number of press people jailed or killed it does not seem they enjoy any special rights of they speak truth to power.
This was overturned.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/business/media/appeals-co...
Regarding the East Room, according to the White House Correspondents' Association website (https://whca.press/covering-the-white-house/), reporters either need to have a hard pass or a temporary pass from the White House Press Office to enter. The Press Office generally only gives press passes to the press. That's why even if we restrict the conversation to the East Room, it's still a "special right" (or special privilege).
Regarding the Oval Office et al. (which admittedly is what the term "press pool" actually refers to), the Trump administration's entire argument was that press access to those spaces is a "privilege, not a right." So keeping in mind the courts affirmed an actual right to the East Room, the White House itself still grants other journalists a special privilege (because they're journalists).
You can make an argument if you'd like that the guy earlier in the thread should've said, "The press has special privileges because accountability and informing the public was supposed to be their job." (This ignores that it's still a "right" in other cases, like the East Room.) Squabbling over that word choice doesn't do a lot for the topic of this thread, which was journalists no longer serving the interest that justified giving them those privileges/rights.