Local news outlet blasts Biden campaign after being snubbed at Pennsylvania event
Newspaper's editorial board criticizes Biden campaign in opinion piece for sending 'wrong message'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A news organization in Lancaster, Penn., is steamed after not being allowed access to cover former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign event Thursday in the southeast Pennsylvania city.
"By shutting out the newspaper's reporters, Biden campaign sends wrong message to Lancaster," was the headline Friday from a piece published by the LNP I LancasterOnline editorial board. The organization publishes the local daily newspaper and news website.
BIDEN TAKES AIM AT TRUMP OVER OBAMACARE DURING BATTLEGROUND STATE STOP
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Biden was in Lancaster on Thursday, meeting at the city's recreation center with a couple of families who've benefited from the Affordable Care Act. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee then gave an address blasting President Trump over his repeated attempts to repeal ObamaCare, which was the signature domestic achievement during Biden's eight years as then-President Barack Obama's vice president.
“Biden was talking with Lancaster County people that LNP | LancasterOnline covers every day of the year. LNP | LancasterOnline journalists should have been permitted to cover Biden’s discussion,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote.
They spotlighted that, “Local newspapers are more essential than ever. Newspapers offer perspective that other forms of media cannot, and their reporters become experts about the communities they cover.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}And the editorial board charged that “By shutting LNP | LancasterOnline out of an important community health discussion held here Thursday, the Biden campaign sent the wrong message about the importance of local newspaper journalism to the very communities it is trying to reach during the presidential campaign.”
BIDEN GOES NEARLY THREE MONTHS WITHOUT HOLDING NEWS CONFERENCE
But the Biden campaign pointed out that they’re following White House Correspondents Association guidelines for coverage of their events. And Biden officials noted that they alerted news organizations in advance that the event in Lancaster was going to be pooled press, which is the way they’ve handled nearly all of the 10 in-person campaign events Biden’s held since he resumed making such trips starting on Memorial Day.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Print, TV, and radio pool reporters were allowed to cover the Lancaster event. The pool chair also allowed a local reporter to cover the event – but the campaign said that reporter was from PoliticsPA, not LNP I LancasterOnline. Reporters from KDKA in Pittsburgh and from WGAL in Lancaster – a local TV station and NBC affiliate – weren’t granted access to cover the event but later conducted interviews with the former vice president at the site.
The campaign pointed out that the pool chair has previously let local reporters from the Philadelphia Inquirer cover events held by Biden in that city. And they noted that Biden's speeches -- including Thursday's in Lancaster -- are live-streamed on the campaign's website.