When it comes to blacklisting the media, Sen Richard Burr trumps The Donald

For much of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump banned certain media outlets — including The Washington Post, Politico and BuzzFeed — from receiving press credentials at his events. That meant reporters from those news agencies could not watch rallies from designated press areas, which usually include work stations, or take advantage of shorter security lines. They had to sit and wait with everyone else. Sen Richard Burr (R-NC) is taking the blacklist to a new level. He is not merely withholding press passes from the News & Observer of Raleigh; he is refusing to even give the newspaper a schedule of events for his reelection campaign.

The move, according to News & Observer reporter Colin Campbell, is "effectively limiting the newspaper from reporting on Burr’s public appearances." It's tough to cover events you don't know about. While some are well-advertised, "there have been several events we only learned of via Twitter after they had ended," Campbell said. "The Burr campaign had been sending near-daily news releases in early October outlining where Burr would be campaigning, but The N&O stopped receiving those releases in recent weeks," Campbell reported. He said the paper received an email in which Burr's campaign explained that it had "put an embargo on sending you scheduling details until you demonstrate the ability to cover this race from a balanced point of view."