The Associated Press journalist who took a renowned photo of President Donald Trump after he emerged from an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, testified about the impact of the White House limiting the news service from presidential events.
“It’s hurting us big time,” Evan Vucci, the chief photographer for AP in Washington D.C., said Thursday during a hearing in the case between the AP and the White House. “We’re basically dead in the water on major news stories.”
His testimony arrives weeks after Trump restricted AP’s access to key events and areas such as Air Force One and the Oval Office due to the news organization’s decision to refer to the “Gulf of Mexico” rather than the “Gulf of America.”
Vucci explained that the AP is “struggling to keep up” with competitors when it comes to major news events and other photographers may not be as well-equipped to take photos either due to skill set or experience.
As an example, he pointed to Trump’s recent contentious meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Without access, the AP had to rely on foreign-based services for images but the photographer that day lacked experience and did not quickly send pictures to editors for wider distribution. As a result, the AP was slower to publish images.
Vucci, a veteran photographer who has won Pulitzer Prizes, has captured some of the most well-known news images around the world, including in 2008 when an Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at former president George W. Bush during a press conference.
Most recently, Vucci captured the moment Trump emerged from a Secret Service huddle with his fist in the air after a gunman fired shots at a Pennsylvania rally.
After winning Political Photo of the Year from the White House News Press Association, Vucci tweeted that the photo “underscores the importance of eyewitness journalism and AP’s legacy of documenting the presidency.”
“I look forward to the day I can once again cover President Trump alongside my colleagues. Now more than ever, independent, nonpartisan photojournalism is essential,” Vucci wrote earlier this month.
In addition to Vucci, the AP’s Chief White House Correspondent Zeke Miller testified that the outlet’s limited access meant its coverage does not have “the same level of completeness” that it once did.
The AP is one of the world’s biggest news services used by local, national and international news outlets. Vucci estimated its photographs reach approximately four billion people.
