It seems Sean Spicer is determined to avoid any normal media. Traditionally, AP got the first press conference question because they are a non-profit organization representing the largest chunk of the nation's media outlets, and their stories are used by everyone. It's not like they are a monopoly. They ask a single question, and that represents all the papers and news networks that subscribe to their feed. The alternative is all the papers send a guy, and fight over access.
The first ever journalist that Spicer called on was from "LifeZette". I had to look up what "LifeZette" even is. It's a
far-right conspiracy theory website/tabloid. This isn't a question of who you believe or partisanship, it's about replacing educated professionals with bozos in clown suits. There was a
hint of this in Bush Jnr's time (Jeff Gannon) but the Trump people are openly embracing this. It's basically like if the hospital tried to pass off the janitor as your surgeon then told you there's nothing to worry about because he did a two day "sawing bones" course. And I mean that literally. The star reporter of the Bush press corp Jeff Gannon, did a
two day conservative reporting course, and they prioritized him over highly educated, experienced and respected journalists.
Why not just put Alex Jones into the press room and let him ask 100% of the questions? Spicer is basically just refusing to engage at all with anyone who could possibly disagree with him. The media open letter was correct. That strategy won't work. By not speaking, you basically give up your right to speak. Journalists will get the information they need somewhere else and those white house press briefings will just nose-dive to irrelevance. Everyone's just going to stop reporting on what's said in those because the material won't be usable or interesting.