Washinton D.C. (CNN Business) Economic journalists will no longer be able to bring their electronic devices --including their laptops --- when they arrive early at the Labor Department to write stories on the country's employment and other data. Instead, they'll be returning to a pre-Internet practice of relying on good old pens and pads to write their stories on inflation, jobless rate and other pieces of economic data starting March 1. The US government no longer wants news organizations that participate in so-called "lock-ups" to able to profit from their early access by potentially selling high-speed data to their clients. "It is my obligation to do everything possible to protect the integrity of our data, as it is collected, analyzed, and distributed," said William Beach, Commissioner of the Labor Department in a letter Thursday. Since the 1980s, the Labor Department has allowed news organizations to bring computers into secured government rooms that are cut off from the Internet for a set period of time -- sometimes up to an hour-- before the government's economic data is released to the public.

Source: CNN January 16, 2020 22:45 UTC