This was a new one.
Pratt & Whitney held a celebratory news conference to highlight the recent growth at its repair facility in Springdale.
But an otherwise typical invitation to the event included something your Whispers staff has never seen before, and we’ve seen more press conference announcements than we like to think about:
In order to get a security badge, members of the media had to declare their citizenship.
As it turns out, it is because Pratt & Whitney manufactures and repairs engines for military aircraft, so it is a bit more interested in who is coming by its facilities than most.
Company officials — who took our word that we’re born and raised in the good ol’ U.S. of A. — said the information is for recording purposes only.
“If you’re a U.S. citizen, that makes things easy,” said Robin Salisbury, Pratt & Whitney’s communications manager.
Sure enough, when we showed up for the news conference, there were no eyeball scans or DNA sampling and we didn’t even have to show our (expired) U.S. passport.
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