Several major news outlets found themselves blocked from attending a White House briefing with press secretary Sean Spicer in the latest sign of worsening relations between the Trump administration and the media attempting to cover it.

The New York Times, CNN, the Los Angeles Times and Politico were among the news organisations prevented from attending on Friday, according to posts by reporters from those outlets on Twitter, as were several foreign news organisations. The Associated Press and Time declined to take part. The White House was said to have invited press organisations to the event.

The three major broadcast networks - CBS, ABC, and NBC - were invited to the briefing, as were several news outlets that play to a conservative readership, such as Breitbart, The Washington Times and One America News Network.

The manoeuvre threatens to cut off some of the nation's most prominent and esteemed news organisations from a daily event that has for years been seen as ingrained in the White House press beat. It also puts a metaphorical barrier between a "gaggle" that allows for the dissemination of information by the President of the United States to the world and the public that elected him to the office.