An aide to Vice President Joe Biden forced a college reporter to delete photos of Biden that were taken at an open event.

The aide stood by and watched as the reporter, from the University of Maryland, manually deleted photos of Biden from his camera. The reporter, who had identified himself as a journalist on entering the event, had mistakenly sat in a section of the seats not marked for journalists. He took photos of Biden standing at the podium, which the aide later demanded be deleted.

Lucy Dalglish, dean of the journalism school at the University of Maryland, complained to Biden's office.

Biden's office later apologized, according to the Washington Post.

“It is our policy that all of our open press events are open press even if a reporter is not in the designated press area,” Biden spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff told the Post.

"This was an unfortunate mistake by a staffer who does not regularly interact with the press. Once we learned about it, I immediately apologized to the Dean of the College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, the reporter involved and to the newspaper. It will never happen again."