Humanity Unraveling

The White House press office confirmed Thursday that a large illuminated scoreboard has been mounted above the briefing room podium, tracking each reporter's real-time standing on what officials are calling the Loyalty Ledger. Correspondents start every briefing at zero and can earn points for warm preambles, lose points for follow-up questions, and are escorted out the moment their tally crosses into the red.

A laminated card handed to credentialed press explains the scoring in broad strokes: a compliment about the President's tie is worth two points, a question containing the word "however" costs three, and any reference to a poll results in immediate ejection regardless of the poll's subject. Outlets whose reporters are removed twice in one week are automatically moved to a waiting room down the hall, where a television plays only the briefing they were removed from.

"We wanted a system that was fair, transparent, and impossible to appeal," said a White House spokesperson, adjusting the scoreboard's brightness before excusing himself to recalibrate the point values for the second time that morning. He declined to say who sets the values, only that they are "reviewed as needed."

Reporters who remain in good standing report a strange new incentive to ask fewer questions altogether, since silence, unlike speech, cannot be penalized. Several correspondents have begun bringing their own small whiteboards to track their scores independently, in case of a dispute with the official board, though officials note that the official board's number is the only one that determines whether security escorts you to the door.

Asked whether additional outlets might be barred entirely rather than scored, the spokesperson said only that "the ledger has room for growth," before the scoreboard behind him ticked down another two points for reasons nobody in the room could identify.