The board for the White House Correspondents’ Association has voted to remove an outlet’s access to daily White House press briefings on the coronavirus pandemic.
The board made the decision after a reporter for the outlet twice attended a press briefing outside of a rotation instituted to comply with federal social distancing guidelines. The reporter attended two press briefings that, because of space constraints and the rotation, they were not cleared to cover from inside the press room.
CBS News reported that a reporter from One America News Network covered Wednesday’s coronavirus task force press briefing from inside the briefing room when OANN was not scheduled to attend. RealClearPolitics reported that OANN was removed from the White House press pool.
“We have asked reporters who don’t have a seat not to attend press briefings,” the WHCA board said in a statement. “The WHCA board has voted this evening to remove a news outlet from the rotation for a seat in the briefing room. We did this because a reporter for this outlet twice attended press briefings in contravention of this policy.”
“We do not take this action lightly. This is a matter of public safety,” the board concluded.
WHCA Statement on Removing News Organization from News Briefing Seat Rotation pic.twitter.com/KL3XcPq7Rt
— WHCA (@whca) April 1, 2020
