Press Corpse (press corps nickname)

A press corps is a group of reporters; there is a White House press corps and there are others at the state and municipal levels. The word “corps” is pronounced like the word “core,” but it’s often mispronounced as “corpse.”
 
The obvious “press corps” nickname of “press corpse” is used by those who believe that the members of the press are dead as a corpse and are merely typists or stenographers (or “repeaters”) to what the government administration tells them. “Press corpse” has been cited in print since at least 1975.
 
“Press corpse” is also a nickname for the team of reporters who write obituaries.
 
Other press corps nicknames include “repeater” and “typing pool/stenography pool.”

 
   
Wikipedia: White House press corps
The White House Press Corps is the group of journalists or correspondents usually stationed at the White House in Washington, D.C. to cover the president of the United States, White House events and news briefings. Their offices are located in the West Wing.
 
Overview
The White House Press Secretary or a deputy generally holds a weekday news briefing, which takes place in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. The room currently seats 49 reporters. Each seat is assigned to one news gathering organization, with the most prominent occupying the first two rows. Reporters who don’t have an assigned seat may stand. Often a smaller group of reporters known as the White House press pool is assembled to report back to their colleagues on events where the venue would make open coverage logistically difficult.
 
(Oxford English Dictionary)
press corps n. newspaper journalists collectively; a group of reporters, esp. in a specific place or of a specified type.
1864 Dubuque (Iowa) Democrat 10 June (NPA) 2/4   We of the press corps are semi-officially cautioned not to criticize the recent newspaper seizures in New York.
1932 Amer. Polit. Sci. Rev. 26 169   The personnel of the House and Senate is disposed of and the press corps passed in review.
1974 Sunday Times 21 July 1/3   A 200-strong international Press corps confined to the hotel by the island’s [sc. Cyprus’s] 24-hour curfew.
 
Google News Archive
29 November 1975, Evening Independent (St. Petersburg, FL), “Our Lovable Old Gerald May Just Win It” by Nicholas Van Hoffman, pg. 11A, col. 2:
Amid rumors that one of the big magazines is preparing a photo montage of President Klutz falling downstairs and tripping over old ladies in wheelchairs, the White House press corpse manfully tries to take him seriously.
 
3 April 1987, Aberdeen (SD) American News, pg. 2A, col. 4:
Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham, who’s had some run-ins with members of the media, declared “Press Corpse Appreciation Day,” but he was only playing April Fool.
 
15 August 1997, The Chronicle (Elyria, OH), pg. A10, col. 1:
When the press corps become a press corpse
Martin Schram
   
Google Books
Square in the Nuts:
Life under a Bush
By Ben Tripp
Los Angeles, CA: Tarantula Brothers Tool & Die
2005
Pg. 19:
The political Reporter’s Gallery of which he spoke has devolved into the Washington Press Corpse. As scurvy a crew of gutless stenographers has seldom been seen outside the Soviet Union during its salad days.
   
CounterPunch
Weekend Edition May 21-23, 2005
A Nation Willingly Deceived
The Grand Illusion
by DOUG GIEBEL
(...)
ll our Sleeping Beauty White House Press Corpse press for answers to the letter’s questions from President Bush and his parade of smoke-blowing B.S. jugglers?
 
The Democratic Daily
Was Jeff Gannon a “Fake White House Reporter”?
October 29, 2007 2:57 pm
By Robert Freedland
(...)
COMMENTS
azportsider on October 31, 2007 1:13 am at 1:13 am
I don’t see why you need to pick on Gannon, er, Guckert…well, whatever name he’s using this week. He was no more a fake reporter than anyone else in the White House Stenography Pool, er, Press Corpse.
 
American Glob
Can We Start Calling the MSM the “Press Corpse” Now?
Feb 4, 2010 by Aleister
I mean, since President Obama is referring to a Navy man as a member of the “corpse”, why not? I’m betting Obama would never refer to the press corps as the press “corpse.”
 
Democrats.com
May 24, 2011
War/Peace
davidswan
(...)
And, last but not least, if a member of the White House Press Corpse ever asks about this during a press conference, what size cell will that lucky person be locked up in?
     
Tea Party at Perrysburg
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Press corpse laughs at Biden
What’s left of the “press” corps, anyway.