If the Donald Trump campaign is trying to “squelch independent coverage” by removing a reporter from an event, “it will not work,” Politico Editor Susan Glasser says in a statement to Washingtonian.
On Thursday night a Trump campaign staffer and a security guard kicked Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger out of a campaign rally in San Jose, California. Schreckinger reports the staffer spied him “typing on a laptop outside of the press pen at the San Jose Convention Center” and asked to see his press credentials.
The campaign won’t grant press credentials to Schreckinger, who co-wrote a negative story about Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Schreckinger says he attended the rally on a general-admission ticket.
I was removed from Donald Trump's rally tonight for practicing journalism without the campaign's permission https://t.co/Lh3rTF1Y8t
— Ben Schreckinger (@SchreckReports) June 3, 2016
The campaign’s actions “constitute a violation of the basic right of a free press to report and as such the Trump campaign has a responsibility to let journalists do their job,” Glasser says in the statement.
Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks told Politico the campaign didn’t know about the incident and was “looking into it.” Hicks has not yet replied to a request from Washingtonian for an update on the investigation.
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
