[Foundation-l] Wikinews is giving out press credentials

[Robert Scott Horning]

Delirium wrote:

> Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
>
>> If you want to issue press credentials there are strict steps to 
>> follow, and they have nothing to do with trademark law or whatever : 
>> they depend on national press legislations. Press organizations have 
>> special privileges related to press, but they also have special 
>> obligations to fulfill, and special liabilities !
>
>
> So an organization cannot, without permission of government-sanctioned 
> bodies, send people to observe and report on events?  We're not 
> talking about official government press passes here (the U.S. analog 
> is state-issued passes), simply a piece of paper that indicates the 
> person in question has the sanction of Wikinews to report on their 
> behalf.  People are free to ignore that piece of paper of course, and 
> demand something government-issued, but are you saying that the mere 
> act of issuing that piece of paper is illegal, even if it is not 
> represented as an official government-sanctioned press pass?
>
> I know in the U.S. at least this is perfect legal, and any attempt to 
> /require/ press credentials be granted through a government agency 
> would be explicitly unconstitutional (violating the First Amendment).  
> A particular event can of course specify that they only accept 
> state-issued press credentials for entry of journalists, or impose 
> even more stringent requirements (White House press briefings require 
> their own approval process), but that's a separate matter---nobody is 
> expecting that Wikinewsies will be allowed in /everywhere/ that other 
> journalists are, at least not in the near future.
>
> -Mark

Who said anything about a government event?  Private organizations also 
give out press passes for different kinds of events, such as the X-Prize 
flight that was done completely by private individuals.  You can also 
get press passes to sporting events and sometimes special conferences. 
 One of the nice things that you can get along with your press pass is a 
press kit as well, that can be invaluable in terms of trying to prepare 
a story.  This will include quotes from people involved and sometimes 
even digitized photos on a CD-ROM or perhaps a password to a press area 
on a website, together with reprint premission for your organization. 
 If you are in a sporting event, the press pass (I've had them before 
for some other work I've done) will get you into areas that the normal 
public will never be allowed, including locker rooms and sometimes even 
onto the event field itself.

For some of the events you even get a pile of free food from the PR reps 
who are trying to butter you up to write a positive story about the 
"event".  I've had prime rib on some occasions, or a BBQ buffet that was 
reserved just for members of the press.  Major League Baseball parks 
even have a seperate kitchen and staff that caters just to members of 
the press.  College Football tends to be a little more laid back and 
open, but still has a huge table laid out with souviners and trinkets as 
well.  

The most important "bonus" is the access to the people running the whole 
show.  Having press credentials when covering a political event will let 
you get "onto the floor" with almost the same privileges as a delegate 
when you are at a convention or be able to directly ask questions to a 
politician.  Tech conferences will even have a seperate room where there 
is one press conference followed by another that goes on for the whole 
conference/convention.

None of this is available to Wikinews reporters if they don't have the 
formal credentials in the first place.  The other aspect is to try and 
keep the standards for issuing the credentials high enough that the 
people organizing these events will take a Wikinews press credential 
seriously.  Otherwise all we would be able to do is report what ordinary 
people see at one of these events (that can still be very interesting). 
 We would be missing a big part of what mainstream reporters get at, 
even from small-town newspapers or radio stations.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning