You decide the Legislature's online-media access policy
In an ill-considered move, I did not attend today's hearing on media credentialing at the state House. Basically, online-only journalists want the same access to the House floor that their legacy media siblings enjoy; the new folks claim lawmakers are unfairly stiffing them. Minnesota Independent's Paul Schmelzer offers his take here.
Schmelzer offers this quote from House Majority Leader Tony Sertich:
“We don’t have a fully defined policy of what online media is. If it’s somebody who designs their own Web site and comes down to the Capitol, … we could be deluged with www.anybody.com walking through the door saying, 'I’m the online media, let me have floor access.' You think the House chamber is a ruckus … now, wait till all the bloggers get here and show up en masse."
Ironically, most stories about Capitol press access focus on who isn't there, as many big organizations have pulled back. But let's grant for a moment that capacity is limited, and throwing the door open to "www.anybody.com" would overwhelm things.
So what's a good, rational standard that reasonably controls floor access and objectively discriminates? Stratify by audience size? Ban any whiff of partisan leanings? Mandate everyone sign in blood the Society for Professional Journalists' ethics code?
I would appreciate your crowdsourced suggestions here.
It seems pretty obvious whatever standard emerges should be platform neutral. The House's existing permanent rule on media access doesn't seem limiting in this regard, though there may be a problem in administering it.
To help guide your thoughts, here are examples of potential applicants. I'm not sure if everyone below is interested, but your policy should specify which would make it. And remember, your standards will apply to everyone, legacy or newcomer:
MinnPost
Look True North network
Minnesota Independent
The Uptake
Checks & Balances
MnPublius
Minnesota Democrats Exposed
Radio Free Nation
Twin Cities Daily Liberal
By the way, if you want to see just which states let reporters on their legislative floors, see here.
Update: MPR's Bob Collins has the first suggestion: a journalists' Star Chamber.
Seriously, he notes that the U.S. Congress allows radio and TV journalists to administer their own gallery and credentialing. Probably better than having politicians do it, but would media insiders hoard their privileges from even qualified insurgents?
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Comments (8)
A source of mine at the Capitol says that the left-leaning Uptake has half a dozen creds for the Senate floor. This is more than MPR, MinnPost, WCCO - more, in fact, than any news orgs except the PiPress, and tied with the Strib.
And to answer your question - oh, yes, we're interested. An application was submitted quite some time ago for credentials for True North and the Northern Alliance Radio Network.
No reply, so far.
David:
I think some sort of self-policing by the Capitol news corps could work. The Baseball Writers Association of America does something similar in terms of who is credentialed for press box/clubhouse access and voting privileges. Care would have to be taken to ensure there isn't old-media vs. new-media bias.
I also agree that the doors shouldn't be fully flung open to anyone with a Web site. There should be some litmus test in terms of audience reach and consistency of reporting, and consideration over whether the person will actually do reporting or substantive opinion writing. For smaller or specially-focused Web sites, there could perhaps be limited media access for when issues of interest to those sites come before the House: An environmental blogger, perhaps, gets approval when Big Stone II is being talked about, or an online journalist focusing on corporate business gets access when there are business taxes on the agenda. Maybe one criteria should be to call it a "journalism pass" rather than a media pass. Certainly, anyone affiliated with a political party, PAC or lobbying organization would not be accredited with a journalism pass.
Dana Yost
Former editor, Marshall Independent
@Mitch: That's almost correct. We have 5 MN Senate creds. It's not secret though - all of our relevant correspondents went through the MN Senate process and are listed publicly in the Capitol Press Corps Directory booklet handed out at the Capitol. You can download a digital copy here from the MN Leg:
www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/publications/pressbooklet.pdf
Of course we would never have 5 correspondents on the floor of the MN Senate at the same time. That wouldn't make sense. =)
It's been very curious that the MN House process has been so different from the MN Senate. Sorry to hear you've heard no reply.
--
Noah Kunin
Senior Political Correspondent, The UpTake
David - Thanks for your post and invitation. As someone who has been trying to work through this process, I can tell you first hand that if I hadn’t experienced it, I wouldn’t believe it.
This problem is definitely more on the House side where I've been passed from person to person, filled out paperwork, re-filled out paperwork, allowed to stream live from hearings and then pulled from other hearings by the Sgt At Arms office. I’ve been told conflicting policies and promised by more than one person that this would all be worked out “soon”.
I've spoken directly, personally with at least 25 Legislators, several assistants, the Sgt At Arms, her staff and House Leadership. The result...Ambiguous Bureaucratic Process = 1, Radio Free Nation = 0.
Furthermore, it seems that some of the folks up here at the Capitol have never heard of the Internet or at the very least consider it a passing fad. Even when I tell them that 84% of American's get some form of their daily news from the web...I get the thousand mile stare. When I tell them people 35 years and younger use the internet as their primary source for news...the head tilts and their blinking becomes rapid.
Seriously though, this is a critical issue of fairness from our standpoint. In one meeting with an assistant to Majority Leader Sertich, I was asked how I'd deal with this situation.
The answer to me is fairly simple. A strong democracy needs good journalism. Now, it is perhaps arguable what "good" journalism is, but I would dare suggest that the work being done online by many of us is equal to and in some cases better than that of the mainstream media.
In that sense, I think anyone from a citizen journalist, blogger, vlogger, Minnpost or the NY Times deserves equal access to our Law Makers. If an individual Blogger, Vlogger or online news organization is committed enough to show up day after day to cover the news of the Capitol, I say they have skin in the game. Most importantly, they are bringing stories and news to light that may not otherwise be heard and that has to be important to our fellow citizens.
This isn't an issue of who is the most popular media outlet or even the biggest, it’s a question of the fundamentals of freedom of press. We aren’t asking for special treatment, we’re asking for equal treatment. We’re in the 21st century, using 21st century tools to bring people the news. As I said to my colleagues today at the Capitol regarding this matter "Hey wake up Law Makers...1972 called and they want their Press rules back."
As I said on the Minnesota Independent Web site, this just smacks too much of letting in the reporters folks like and don't like. And I would see problems with that in letting the press corps -- especially the so-called major media -- decide. Decisions have to be made in a way that's inclusive and frankly, some of the dailies and broadcast people don't want to play nice. I won't go into my whole rant about the years it took for me to get a desk, documents, etc. . . . I'd put my work up against anyone's yet I'm Rodney Dangerfield's lost child. I'm your colleague only when you folks need a favor.
People need to get over their sense of entitlement and realize that the First Amendment is a pretty big tent.
The Twin Cities urban neighborhood, suburban, ethnic and special interest community papers have dealt with the same media access issues for decades. We've been shut out at the capitol and at our respective local government offices. (I now have the joy of Strib reporters using the neighborhood papers' city hall/court house desk as their bagel table -- and folks, if I crack my dental bridge on one of your bagels I doubt your newspaper would reimburse my dental costs)
We had papers' credentials challenged several years ago when the St. Paul City Conference track meet was moved to Roseville High, for pete's sake. We had a former St. Paul mayor give us a different press secretary that the dailies had. Equal access is not a new problem but it's a very frustrating one.
What do I, reading public, need to do to help you guys out? I'm not a journalist, I just want you to have the access needed to write the stores I want/need to read.
The way to help is to weigh in and contact your legislators. Let them know where you get your news. Let them know what you read. Let them know that even if a blog or Web publication or print publication doesn't represent what you or someone else agree with, different perspectives and different points of view have as much value as whatever the mainstream publications or broadcast media bring forward.
My solitary addition is this: to distinguish between those who "report" and those eho "comment" is dangerous and misunderstands one of the developing characteristics of online media: the prevalence of fact-based, research-based, reality-based analysis and commentary. You'll risk content bias if you distinguish between the two (one pol's fact is another pol's rabid opinion), and you'll lose good writers.
Besides, MSM "objectivity" too often just conceals biases that taint the gathering, selection, and presentation of the "news" anyway; I'd argue it's better to know someone's slant off the bat and evaluate their assertions accordingly, than to hope that the "neutral" presentation you're reading hasn't left things out.
Rather, ask: does this writer have a history of using facts, of the kind he'll glean here, in his posts, however those posts are characterized? And is she generally responsible in how she uses facts, not distorting them? Are her opinions supported by the truth? If so, she's a journo; let her in.