Political journalists walked out of No 10 Downing Street this afternoon in protest at the government planning to give a briefing on the EU only to selected reporters – banning The Mirror, i, Huffington Post, PoliticsHome, Independent and others from attending.
Reporters on the invited list were asked to stand on one side of a rug in the foyer of No 10, while those not allowed in were asked by security to stand on the other side.
After one of Boris Johnson’s most senior advisers, Lee Cain, told the banned reporters they must leave the building, the rest of the journalists decided to walk out rather than allow Downing Street to choose who scrutinises and reports on the government.
Among those who refused the briefing and walked out included the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, ITV’s Robert Peston and political journalists from the Daily Mail, Telegraph, the Sun, Financial Times, and Guardian.
The briefing was due to be given by government officials, who are meant to be neutral, rather than political.
The tactics from No 10 mirror those of Donald Trump in the US who has been known to try to exclude journalists from reporting on his activities and represents an escalation of Johnson’s tensions with the media, which have been ramping up in recent weeks.
www.theguardian.com
