Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With Allie Bice and Nick Niedzwiadek Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Tina He has become a familiar yet mysterious presence in the White House press corps. He is short in stature, usually behind a video camera, uploading uneventful videos of President JOE BIDEN’s arrivals and departures, a credential dangling from his neck. Perhaps you’ve seen him, if only because he is seemingly everywhere — and often when you’d least expect. “Hello on a rainy day in Florida,” began a White House pool report from a Wednesday last May, labeled “AF1 Arrival Report #1.” At the bottom of the email, the signature read, KYLE MAZZA, UNF News. The only problem: Mazza, a 24-year-old journalist who founded UNF News, was not the pooler that day. He and his outlet, which stands for Universal News Forever, are not even in the pool, though he would like to be. The unsolicited report puzzled poolers on duty that day, as well as members of the White House Correspondents Association. In an interview, Mazza said he was simply trying to contribute, not realizing that the event was reserved for poolers only. Mazza has an endless reserve of energy and determination. He started working in journalism when he was 8 years old. “I never really watched cartoons,” he said. “I always watched the news.” At age 9, he purchased police scanners and weather radios, traveling around his hometown of Fair Lawn, N.J., to take photos of crime scenes and traffic accidents. At 13, he started working as a volunteer at the local public access station. He has since collected about 540 credentials — he kindly counted them to be sure — which he saves on bulletin boards at his childhood home in Fair Lawn, though he said he is running out of space. But Mazza has been a headache for the WHCA, prompting endless rounds of behind-the-scenes debate. His earnest insistence on covering the president has forced the 107-year old association, which represents hundreds of White House beat reporters, to wrestle with the question of who counts as a “White House reporter” and who doesn’t in 2021, when a 24-year-old with a camera and some cash can be his own publisher. Mazza said he has asked and been denied the right to participate in the regular rotation of reporters and photographers who make up the White House pool — and send reports of the president’s whereabouts to reporters around the globe. “Sometimes it can be difficult,” said Mazza. “It’s important to give every member of the press a chance to be in that travel pool. I think it just needs to be more inclusive.” But Mazza has not been entirely excluded. He has been granted a “hard pass” by the White House, a press credential that allows him to access the White House without an escort. He’s also covered many of the president’s events across the country, though he says he has never been on Air Force One. Mazza said he drove from the East Coast to California last October in a day and seven hours, stopping only twice to use the bathroom and eat. “I wasn't tired at all. Water and singing were the key.” He has even popped up abroad, traveling to Singapore to cover the meeting between President DONALD TRUMP and KIM JONG UN in 2018, to Buenos Aires that same year for the G20 summit, and to Canada to cover Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU as a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery. “They know me in Canada,” he said. Asked how he funds his travels — a subject of curiosity among his colleagues in the press — Mazza said he relies on earnings from his freelance work and money from his parents, who he says own their own data processing company, to underwrite UNF News. “They're very invested in my career,” he said. “It’s something that I’ll always thank them for. All of that help, that funding — that really is the driver for my career.” We first noticed Mazza this summer at Biden’s church in Delaware, where he is a regular, posting up outside to get video of the motorcade’s arrival and departure. But he got his first big write-up in the New York Times four years ago, after he asked Trump a question about his wife (“Can you tell us a little bit about what first lady Melania Trump does for the country?”) that some in the press—and even Trump himself—regarded as a “softball.” “Now, that’s what I call a nice question,” Trump told Mazza. “That is very nice. Who are you with?” “UNF News,” Mazza said “Good, I’m going to start watching.” If Mazza does pitch softballs, it should be noted, he lofts them to both sides. “Are you enjoying the bike ride, Mr. President,” he asked a cycling Biden at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware in June. “Yes,” Biden said. During the transition, Mazza did extract some news from Biden when the president-elect said he would meet with Trump if the then-president asked. (Mazza notes the question got “played by ERIN BURNETT on CNN too.” It did!) UNF doesn't have much of a footprint on the media landscape (yet). Mazza has just 2,500 or so followers on Twitter despite having issued more than ten times as many tweets. UNF’s website could best be described as bare bones. On its YouTube page, you’ll mostly find short clips showing Biden or his motorcade arriving or departing an event, footage that poolers themselves can’t get from a press bus. Some of the videos have thousands of views. Mazza believes there’s something more to these videos than a simple arrival or departure. Say, for instance, “something happens while in transit, and if the pool doesn't see it on the bus, who is going to know about it?” he asked. “It seems like a small thing. But it really isn’t.” “It’s not for fun” or “self-interest,” he added. “It’s for the American people.” Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you ANTHONY BERNAL, aka ‘Jill’s Enforcer’? Or do you have more stories about Bernal? We want to hear from you — and we’ll keep you anonymous: westwingtips@politico.com. Or if you want to stay really anonymous send us a tip through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram, or Whatsapp here. | 
