Reporters from three organizations were not allowed in to cover cancer causing chemicals hearing. Reporters from at least three different news organizations were reportedly kept…
Reporters from three organizations were not allowed in to cover cancer causing chemicals hearing.
Reporters from at least three different news organizations were reportedly kept out of a public hearing Tuesday dealing with cancer-causing chemicals at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D. C.
EPA Director Scott Pruitt attended the event as well as a “handful” of reporters from other outlets, according to the report.
”The Environmental Protection Agency’s selective barring of news organizations, including the AP, from covering today’s meeting is alarming and a direct threat to the public’s right to know about what is happening inside their government,” AP Executive Editor Sally Buzbee said in a statement. ”It is particularly distressing that any journalist trying to cover an event in the public interest would be forcibly removed.”
According to the article, EPA Spokesman Jahan Wilcox explained that there was not enough room for the reporters, who were not on an invitation list to cover the hearing.
Pruitt said that dealing with the chemicals needed to be a national priority, the article said.
“I’m not going to weigh into random hypotheticals that may or may not exist,” she said. “I don’t know any information about this specific incident. You’re asking me to speak to blanket possibilities, which I’m not going to do.”
The incident is the latest round in what many see as a war between the Trump Administration and the press.
President Donald Trump has consistently called the media “fake news,” and criticized a variety of negative coverage since the start of the 2016 campaign.
Matters seemed to get worse last week over President Trump’s response to a question from Fresno, California Sheriff Margaret Mims about MS-13 gang members.
President Trump referred to the illegal gang members coming into the country as “animals” due to its record of heinous crimes, especially to women.
Many mainstream media outlets initially reported that Trump had made the comment about all illegal immigrants.
Several of those outlets later either retracted or amended their reports.
