News photographer protests White House restrictions, takes revealing shot of Trump

The photo, embedded in article below, has been circulating online since Doug Mills at the New York Times captured it. Photo / AP

The fight over access between reporters and any White House can sometimes seem more like an exercise in First Amendment theory than practical reality: Is it really that important for the news media to get a glimpse of, say, a carefully choreographed photo op at an international summit before being led back out in a matter of minutes?

Actually, yes, it is, as New York Times photographer Doug Mills illustrated over three days on President Trump's trip to Asia.

On Friday, Mills was part of the small group of traveling "press pool" members shadowing Trump in Danang, Vietnam, when he tweeted a "photo" of a black box to protest the White House's decision to shut out the pool from any coverage of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meetings.

"This is what our coverage ... looks like today," he wrote in the tweet. "Blank. No coverage."

This what our APEC Summit photo coverage looks today in Da Nang Vietnam. Blank. No coverage by the White House Travel Pool photographers traveling with @realDonaldTrump #APEC2017 #apec pic.twitter.com/jFgsJW5OcO

— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) November 11, 2017

On Monday, Mills got his revenge at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit here with Trump in Manila. Admitted with the pool for a few minutes to observe the annual ritual of the ASEAN leaders' "family photo," Mills snapped a quick frame that spread quickly through social media after he posted it online.

Postcards From Asia: Trump’s 12-Day Visit, in Images https://t.co/q4bFBmbn7M pic.twitter.com/xhWzkcCCRn

— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) November 13, 2017

Political pundits quickly made hay of the photo and poked fun at Trump and the whole tradition of the family photo.

Critics of the media, perhaps including Trump himself, might point to Mills's photo as evidence that the "mainstream media" is out to undermine the president in an unfair and biased manner. Surely there were many other frames Mills could have chosen that made Trump look more distinguished. Yet Mills and other pool photographers published the awkward ones.

\In fact, what Mills's photo does is make a strong case in answer of how this post began - the question of why the access of the independent press matters even on staged photo-ops or seemingly trivial events. In ways both subtle and stark, Trump's awkward grimace reveals the messy reality of high-stakes geopolitics that an airbrushed official portrait of the ASEAN "family" would gloss over.