The former president of the White House Correspondents Association called the decision to grant Fox News a front-row seat for White House press briefings a muddle-headed "travesty."
"The vacancy was created because of an ideological conflict. To fill the vacancy with another cloud of ideological conflict was most unfortunate and inappropriate," groused Bloomberg's former White House correspondent Ed Chen, whose association term expired this summer. A front-row vacancy was created when UPI reporter Helen Thomas resigned after her controversial comments about Jews and Israel.
"You had Helen go out on this conflict over politics and a question of fairness. You fill the seat with someone who drags in all of this controversy," Chen harrumphed to Media Matters. CNN Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry, who succeeded Chen as head of the correspondents' association, has supported the Fox "promotion" to a front-row seat.
(More Fox News stories.)
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