Access journalism

Access journalism, or access reporting, refers to journalism which prioritizes access—meaning media time with important, rich, famous, powerful, or otherwise influential people in politics, culture, sports, and other areas—over journalistic objectivity and/or integrity.

Features

Typical features of access journalism include:

absence of demanding accountability towards the questioned respondent
avoiding controversial topics so as to maintain access to the respondent
can be vague and non-specific
pre-approved questions, no gotcha questions, softball questions
sometimes even respondent's control over how the interview will be edited and which parts will be aired
can be published quickly and distributed widely

Access journalism, in some cases, is similar to infomercials, or advertising disguised as news. The venture of doing the interview can be symbiotic—beneficial for both the journalist and the celebrity, since it can synergically bring more attention to both of them, and further notability, influence, media exposure, current relevance, etc., for both of them.
Access journalism has been contrasted with accountability journalism. A similar contrast is between lapdog journalism and watchdog journalism.

Criticism

Critics of access journalism argue that prioritizing relationships with influential figures for the sake of access undermines the fundamental role of journalism to hold power accountable. This practice was highlighted during Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, where media outlets provided extensive coverage, often without challenging the accuracy of his statements, resulting in what some estimated to be billions of dollars in free media exposure. This practice has sparked debate within the journalism community regarding the balance between providing coverage and maintaining journalistic standards.