President-elect Donald Trump’s team is considering moving the press briefing room out of the White House's West Wing, according to Trump's incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus. 
 
 When asked about an Esquire magazine report that the incoming administration plans to move the press room out of the West Wing to the Old Executive Office Building next door, Priebus told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "This Week", "The one thing that we discussed was whether or not we want to do conferences in the [Executive Office Building]." 
 
 "Which, by the way, is the White House," Priebus added. "So no one is moving out of the White House. That is the White House, where you can fit four times the amount of people in the press conference, allowing more press, more press coverage from all over the country to have those press conferences. That's what we're talking about." 
 
 Situated just to the west of the White House at 1650 Pennsylvania Ave., the Old Executive Office Building houses White House offices and staff, but is a physically separate building. 
 
 The news of a possible change in venue for White House press corps briefings comes after a very contentious first press conference by the president-elect last week. 
 
 “I know some of the folks in the press are uptight about this and I understand,” Priebus said on “This Week.” “The only thing that's been discussed is whether or not the initial press conferences are going to be in that small press room. For the people listening to this that don't know this, the press room that people see on TV is very, very tiny -- 49 people fit in that press room.” 
 
 “We had like 500 or 600 folks at the press conference last week so we started thinking, 'Man alive, if we can have more people involved than less people involved, that would be a good thing' -- that's what this is about, George,” Priebus said. 
 
 Priebus added that the change in venue would allow for more press coverage and greater access by journalists. Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer gave a statement to ABC News following the report in Esquire. 
 
 "While no decisions have been made, there is enormous interest in covering Donald Trump and his agenda to improve the lives of every American," Spicer's statement said. "The current briefing room only has 49 seats so we have looked at rooms within the White House to conduct briefings that have additional capacity to accommodate members of media including talk radio, bloggers and others." 
 
 Meanwhile, the president of the White House Correspondents Association, an organization of journalists who cover the White House and president, said he plans to meet with Trump's incoming press secretary on the issue. 
 
 In a statement to the media, association President Jeff Mason said he is seeking "clarity" about reports that the press-briefing room may be moved. 
 
 Mason also made it clear that the association's preference is to keep the press room where it is. 
 
 "The briefing room is open now to all reporters who request access. We support that and always will. The WHCA will fight to keep the briefing room and West Wing access to senior administration officials open. We object strenuously to any move that would shield the president and his advisers from the scrutiny of an on-site White House press corps," the statement concluded. 
 
 ABC News' Michael Edison Hayden, Katherine Faulders and Alexander Mallin contributed to this report. ||||| The upset to the existing order caused by the presidential election has been acutely felt by no one, perhaps, so much as it has by the national press. At Donald Trump's press conference on Wednesday, reporters found themselves not only subject to a scolding ("Fake news!" "Disgraceful!") but also awakened to the strong suggestion that, at least in tactical terms, the showdown had been won by the president-elect. 
 
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 The media's sense of dislocation may soon become literal. 
 
 According to three senior officials on the transition team, a plan to evict the press corps from the White House is under serious consideration by the incoming Trump Administration. If the plan goes through, one of the officials said, the media will be removed from the cozy confines of the White House press room, where it has worked for several decades. Members of the press will be relocated to the White House Conference Center—near Lafayette Square—or to a space in the Old Executive Office Building, next door to the White House. 
 
 "There has been no decision," Sean Spicer, Trump's press secretary, said about the plan today. But Spicer acknowledged that "there has been some discussion about how to do it." 
 
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 Spicer cast the possible relocation of the press corps as a matter, in part, of logistics. "There's been so much interest in covering a President Donald Trump," he said. "A question is: Is a room that has forty-nine seats adequate? When we had that press conference the other day, we had thousands of requests, and we capped it at four hundred. Is there an opportunity to potentially allow more members of the media to be part of this? That's something we're discussing." 
 
 Another senior official, however, suggested a more pointed motivation for the move. According to the official, the potential relocation reflected a view within the transition team that coverage of Trump has been so hostile as to indicate that the press has abandoned its role as neutral observer. 
 
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 "They are the opposition party," a senior official says. "I want 'em out of the building. We are taking back the press room." 
 
 Reporters have had some sort of workspace at the White House since Teddy Roosevelt's time, but the current press room is an artifact of the Richard Nixon era, the dawn of the symbiosis of the press and the modern presidency. The "room" is actually a space containing work stations and broadcast booths, as well as the briefing area that is so familiar to viewers of presidential news conferences. 
 
 "I want 'em out of the building. We are taking back the press room." 
 
 For the media, the White House press room—situated on the first floor, in the space between the presidential residence and the West Wing—is not only a convenience, with prime sources just steps away. It is also a symbol of the press' cherished role as representatives of the American people. In the midst of the George W. Bush presidency, when relations between reporters and the Administration were growing testy, the White House press corps was removed from the press room for nearly a year, while the facility was remodeled. The move prompted such concern that the president himself had to offer his assurance that it was only temporary. (As it happened, press conferences were held at the White House Conference Center during the renovation). 
 
 Trump himself, of course, is in many ways a creature of the press, and it remains to be seen whether he will sign off on a plan that puts more distance between him and the cameras whose attention he has long sought. But for some Trump officials, the media's presumption of entitlement all but requires a change. If there is a credo that reflects the culture inside the James Brady Briefing Room (named after President Ronald Reagan's first press secretary, who was wounded by a bullet meant for Reagan), it is that presidents come, and presidents go, but the White House press corps is forever. In that sentiment, some in the transition team discern precisely the attitude that led to the revolt that elected Trump president. ||||| The sense of alarm was clear last week when more than 100 reporters showed up to a routine meeting of the White House Correspondents’ Association. The group, which promotes reporters’ access to presidential administrations, pledged to be vigilant about responding to any erosion of press freedoms. “We are all in this together,” said Jeff Mason of Reuters, the group’s president. 
 
 Since the 1970s, reporters from broadcast, print and radio outlets have worked in small cubicles on the former site of a West Wing swimming pool. The reporters can walk, without a security escort, to the offices of White House press aides and the press secretary to check in on developments or to pick up the latest gossip. 
 
 It was not clear on Sunday whether the administration’s idea to relocate the White House press corps might extend to evicting reporters from their office space. “That hasn’t been determined,” Mr. Priebus told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Later, on ABC’s “This Week,” Mr. Priebus said, “The only thing that’s been discussed is whether or not the initial press conferences are going to be in that small press room.” 
 
 Few presidents relish sharing their home with reporters who are responsible for questioning their every move. But journalists have been granted space in the White House since the William McKinley administration, and their presence is seen as a potent symbol of a president’s willingness to be held to account. 
 
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 Sean Spicer, the incoming White House press secretary, issued a statement on Sunday that did not address the issue of a dedicated work space. “While no decisions have been made, there is enormous interest in covering Donald Trump,” he wrote. “The current briefing room only has 49 seats, so we have looked at rooms within the White House to conduct briefings that have additional capacity.” 
 
 In a two-hour meeting on Sunday, Mr. Mason told Mr. Spicer that it would be “unacceptable” to evict reporters from their work space. Mr. Spicer did not appear to disavow such a plan, only agreeing to discuss any changes ahead of time. “We object strenuously to any move that would shield the president and his advisers from the scrutiny of an on-site White House press corps,” Mr. Mason wrote in an email. 
 
 Mr. Trump’s communications team has pledged to shake up the status quo, inviting nontraditional journalists, including talk radio hosts and conservative bloggers, to the West Wing and prohibiting television coverage of daily press briefings, an idea that is supported by some former press secretaries of both political parties. 
 
 Mr. Spicer denounced the news media last week at a news conference, describing CNN and BuzzFeed News as “sad” and “pathetic” for reporting on unverified allegations about Mr. Trump and Russia. 
 
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 But initial discussions between the White House press corps and the new administration have been described as diplomatic, with Mr. Trump’s team pledging to retain reporters’ access to the president’s motorcade and his flights on Air Force One. 
 
 Bob Schieffer, a longtime CBS News anchor who has covered eight presidential administrations, said he was not surprised to see tensions between a new president and the news media. 
 
 “They’re not the first administration that’s come to office thinking they can control every single word that’s said about them,” he said in an interview. “It’s their call, they can do what they want to do, and if the public puts up with it, they’ll continue to do it that way.” 
 
 But, he added: “If they think they’re not going to get the same intense coverage, they’ve been smoking something.”
– Could reporters covering White House goings-on soon be relegated to standing in front of the fence, much like the New York Times describes reporters in the 1890s? A report published Saturday night by Esquire suggested a move of some sort, with three senior transition team officials telling the magazine discussions have been had to move the press corps out of the 49-seat West Wing press room and to one of two other nearby locations: the White House Conference Center, which was used as a temporary press center during a previous press-room revamp, or the Executive Office Building just west of the White House. The announcement surprised those in the journalism arena, fresh off a contentious press conference the president-elect held earlier in the week. Trump's incoming press secretary Sean Spicer told Esquire the topic had been broached but not decided on. "There's been so much interest in covering a President Donald Trump," he said, attributing a possible move to, among other things, not enough seats to accommodate a growing number of reporters. Another senior official offered a different take, calling the press "the opposition party" and noting, "I want 'em out of the building. We are taking back the press room." Reince Priebus, Trump's incoming chief of staff, tried to assuage jittery feelings Sunday on This Week With George Stephanopoulos, noting a move to the EOB—"which, by the way, is the White House"—had been discussed, and that such a move would offer more access, per ABC News. White House Correspondents' Association President Jeff Mason said in a statement that the WHCA "[objects] strenuously to any move that would shield the president and his advisers from the scrutiny of an on-site White House press corps."