Do Bloggers Deserve Press Credentials?
by Matt on Mar 8, 2010 in Industry, Legal Issues
Following quickly on the heels of the UK episode in which a blogger was kicked out of court comes the case of Jay Liner and his Baltimore Organ local blog/site. As the Maryland Daily Record reports, Liner is suing the state governor’s office for denying him a press credential to report on state government news.
Liner has no desire to become a trailblazer in the blogosphere, but he acknowledges the lawsuit reflects how the Internet has forever changed the way people consume news.
“This is the modern delivery system,” he said. “Why should this be treated differently?”
It’s a question government officials, media lawyers and even reporters themselves struggle to answer.
To be frank, the article itself wanders and is a bit of a mess, but this is a legitimate issue for local bloggers, and something we should all be paying attention to – but especially those of you who are news bloggers in your hometown.
My take: Local governments (and state governments, for that matter) need to wake up to the realities of modern journalism and reconsider their requirements for defining who is and isn’t a reporter.
(Found this via MediaGazer)
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If you (plural) would stop defining yourselves and letting others define you as “bloggers,” this would be even less of an issue. I do not use “blogger” – you’re a writer; the only question is what kind of writer are you, news? opinion? diary? humor? education? or? I do not use “blog” as a verb – you’re writing. Unless you’re photographing (or video-ing). I do not use “blog” as a noun in the context of anything but a publishing format. That, it definitely is; but otherwise, it’s been trashed, abused, and hung out to dry, and I think beyond salvage. (I wouldn’t have put it in our name if I’d had any idea of what we were going to wind up doing with our website.)
That’s all a long preface to this: OF COURSE you deserve media credentials IF you are a serious reporter covering news, in whatever format. When I read about the NYC case, my jaw dropped. Almost the first thing we did when we turned our site into a business – a professional, journalist-run news organization – in late 2007, was arrange to get official media credentials. My husband and I both have them. Yeah, maybe my preceding 30 years in journalism helped. But we blazed the trail as the first local neighborhood newsies to get them, and others without that kind of background – but working seriously at covering their neighborhoods’ news – have followed.
Truth is, we don’t need them much, mostly spot news and sporting events, but when you need them, you need them.
Oh, and besides throwing out “blogging” as a verb and “blogger” as a noun – looking at your excerpt above – let’s bag “blogosphere” too. It’s not like there’s some segregated area of the Web where only blog-format writers lurk, and only blog-format readers read.
So to recap: If you are covering the news, you’re a newsperson. I call myself a journalist, since I’ve been one for more than three decades, but if you don’t feel comfortable with that, try “newsperson” on for size. And go get a media credential if you don’t have one already!
Maybe I’m lucky: I live in a city and state that doesn’t have formal press credentials but instead focuses on public access (the state’s highest court recently threw out a conviction because the public was barred from jury empanelment procedings). But wouldn’t the time spent in trying to obtaining them be better spent just reporting news or figuring out how to get around the restrictions as a member of the public rather than the press? There’s no public access to the Maryland legislature? Do we really want the government defining who we are?
Love these two comments, thank you Tracy and Adam. Tracy – how easy is it to get press credentials? Where did you go and what was required? I’d love a guest post on that subject if you have time.
(I know how busy you are.)
Adam – there is public access to the legislature, but there’s something in the article about this guy requesting a level of access that Joe Q. Public doesn’t have, but that a “journalist” does.
I’ve taken the advice of Tracy and gotten rid of “blogger” or “blog” from my site. People seem to take you much more seriously. Mountlake Terrace is a suburb of about 20,000 north of Seattle and they don’t have any real press credentials. I had no problem talking to the PD and getting access to police reports and other information.
It didn’t take much time. For us, it was part of a process that started with a meeting with the local police precinct leadership – to introduce ourselves, once we “came out” (we had been anonymous before becoming a business, a long ridiculous story), and as part of that, we said, will you guys back us if we need you to vouch for us with the media unit downtown when we apply for passes? (We had tried to deal directly with the media unit and gotten some pushback.) They did, and made a phone call, and we made an appointment to go downtown and get the passes.
Speaking of Legislature, mine also came in handy when going there recently for the first time (ironically – to cover legislation involving public-safety personnel). But I could have just sat there and taken notes – I only wanted to introduce myself because I intended to stand at the front of the room and shoot video when the people from our area testified. Saying “I’m credentialed” probably eased the way … although as you all know, EVERYBODY shoots pix and video these days and the line is so blurred!
Regardless of what you decide to call yourself or whether you pursue official credentials, the preceding comments do hint at the most important thing: If you want to be taken seriously, conduct yourself seriously. Don’t take any crap and don’t let anybody blow you off. More and more, we – as in, neighborhood journalists everywhere – are the ONLY ones showing up for stories, and we deserve access, on behalf of those we serve.
Good point about how you position yourself equating to how you are treated. I had a journalist approach me for two tickets to a gala event. The gala event didn’t have a very obvious connection to the kind of writing this person does, and it smacked of “I want 2 tickets to your high priced event.” My impression of the writing is that it IS more blog than news; although there is some kind of application process for this “publication,” it does seem like every Tom, Dick and Harry writes one or two articles then goes away permanently. This person’s writing was a bit meatier, but given the impression the “publication” makes, who’s reading? We turned down the ticket request and offered instead for this person to come and visit the venue for its grand opening. Not surprisingly, I received no response to the counter-offer.
I agree — Blog is just a medium, nothing more. With internet the number one media choice overwhelmingly in every major study (83% vs. 27% Web news versus TV news in our last major Blogertize.com study), journalists who write exclusively online must be taken as serious news people. The question is whether it’s a “hobby” or a “vocation”. If it’s vocation, and the journalist is using a blog as medium, there’s no question this is a person who is a news person. Joining a major journalist association can help if credentials are vital, but normally a “publication” (the media, i.e. the blog, it this is the publication) can request credentials for an event simply by using the media letterhead with a request from the editor. More and more the definition of newsperson is evolving, especially with more and more print and broadcast media outlets shutting down, and journalists moving to hugely popular online media (Yahoo journalists are widely accepted as credentialed journalists by everyone, right?) — including the popular webzines and ezines that I contribute to (I write for both print and online, increasingly for online media). We don’t use the term blog, either, as suggested here… simply online media publication, webzine, ezine or online daily news. Derek Armstrong, chief crime correspondent, Crime Report USA (http://www.crimereportusa.com).