Obama Sunday swearing-in to get press coverage

There will be press coverage when President Obama takes the oath of office on Sunday, Jan. 20, the head of the inauguration planning committee said Tuesday.

“There will be coverage of the Sunday event. The White House press corps and the White House press office are working on what that will be and the type of access," Stephen Kerrigan, the chief executive officer of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, told reporters.

The Constitution requires a president to be sworn in on the 20th, but when that day falls on a Sunday, the public ceremony gets pushed to Monday while the president has a smaller ceremony on Sunday.

The committee said Obama will take the oath of office at the White House on Sunday in "a small private" ceremony.

It was the word "private" that led to questions about whether the press would be allowed to cover the event.

Kerrigan said there would be media access, noting that the White House Correspondents' Association and the White House press office were discussing the arrangement.

"The White House is working on details with the pool and the press corps," he said.

This is the seventh time a president has taken the oath on Sunday and then ceremonially on Monday.

The last was Ronald Reagan in 1985, when he took the oath at the White House on Sunday, which was televised, and then had another swearing-in on Monday at the Capitol.

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