The best way to introduce you to Mary Ellen Klaus is with this video.

You can look it up over at the Miami Herald.

She's a reporter there.

You can't see her face when you watch, but you can hear her voice.

You're, because I requested social distancing, you are telling me I can't come in.

No, I said we are having the coordinates of Florida channels.

She's asking a Florida State spokesperson, why she's been excluded from a press conference with the governor.

And this decision was made by whom?

I have nothing else to add.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, well, that was a frustrating moment. We were having these press conferences in the Emergency Operations Center where reporters were crammed into this room,

shoulder to shoulder, and, you know, people were coughing, and you're thinking, wait a minute,

do they have COVID?

What do we know?

Mary Ellen asked to have press conferences in a bigger space so folks could spread out.

Instead, the governor staffers just started inviting fewer reporters.

And so I showed up, and they wouldn't let me in.

So I confronted them, and they said, well, you asked for social distancing and we are just accommodating your request.

We're socially distancing you out of the room.

Socially distancing me out of the room. That's right.

Mary Ellen had a list of questions for the governor that day, about when he expected the coronavirus to peak in Florida, about how he planned to help health care workers who were getting sick,

...