White House Unveils Real-Time 'Coverage Mood' Scoreboard for Press Corps
Reporters will now watch their own badges deactivate mid-sentence if a story trends too unfavorable.
The White House press office confirmed Monday that it has installed a large digital scoreboard above the briefing room podium tracking each outlet's "coverage sentiment" in real time, with a mechanism that automatically deactivates a reporter's credential the moment their network's score crosses into negative territory.
"We came together as one press pool, divided," said a spokesperson, before stepping away to recalibrate the scoreboard's sensitivity settings ahead of the afternoon briefing.
Under the new system, reporters whose outlets dip below zero mid-question will find their badges beeping, their microphones dimming, and, in one instance during a test run, their chairs quietly wheeled backward toward the exit by an unnamed staffer.
Officials say the system is designed to be self-correcting: outlets can restore access by running a segment favorable enough to push their score back into positive numbers, though nobody on staff could explain what unit the numbers were actually measured in.
Asked whether other networks might eventually be added to the scoreboard, the spokesperson said only that "the board has room for everyone," gesturing to a wall where several logos had already been sketched in and then crossed out.