Hey, Happy CMA Week!
It’s certainly been an eventful couple of days leading up to this week’s highly anticipated CMA Awards. As reported by Variety, The Country Music Association created a bit of a stir last Thursday when it issued specific guidelines for media outlets covering this week’s 51st Annual CMA Awards, and included in them was a demand that that reporters not focus their “coverage of the CMA Awards Red Carpet and Backstage Media Center on the Las Vegas tragedy, gun rights, political affiliations or topics of the like” — under threat of credentials potentially being “revoked via security escort.”
Late Friday morning, Country superstar Brad Paisley, who has hosted the show with Carrie Underwood for the past nine years, slammed the ban, tweeting, “I’m sure the CMA will do the right thing and rescind these ridiculous and unfair press guidelines. In 3… 2…1….”
Less than two hours later, the CMA blinked, issuing a statement that read, “CMA apologizes for the recently distributed restrictions in the CMA Awards media guidelines, which have since been lifted. The sentiment was not to infringe and was created with the best of intentions to honor and celebrate Country Music.”
Paisley then responded in a follow-up tweet that said, “Bravo CMA awards for doing the right thing & apologizing for this mistake. All are welcome, let’s have a great show.”
