(WASHINGTON) -- A student reporter from the University of Maryland, College Park has been issued an apology by Joe Biden's office after he was told to delete photos he took at a speaking event Wednesday where the vice president introduced a new domestic violence initiative.

 

According to student reporter Jeremy Barr, he was approached by a Biden staffer and was told to delete the photos because he was mistakenly sitting in a public area rather than the designated press section and had "an unfair advantage" over the media.

 

This prompted a response from Lucy Dalglish, dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, who complained to Biden's office that his staffer "not only violated fundamental tenets of freedom of press freedom, but directly violated the law set forth in the Privacy Protection Act."

 

Soon afterwards, the vice president's press secretary Kenda Barkoff spoke to both Barr and Dalglish to apologize and blamed the incident on "total miscommunication."

 

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