Minimizing the impact

Judging by the lack of comments, I’m guessing not many of you read this item. I urge you to do so now.

Bloggers kicked out of a blogging event. Ironic…don’t you think?

Published May 3rd, 2007 in Uncategorized.

Yesterday we received a copy of a press release inviting the press to attend ETV’s weekly show with Senator Glenn McConnell.

The press release stated:

This week’s SCETV Senate teleconference hosted by
President Pro Tem McConnell on Thursday, May 3rd, at 9:30 a.m., will
host Senator Jake Knotts, R – Lexington and Senator Kevin Bryant,
R-Anderson as they discuss how blogs impact the legislative process.

We encourage you to personally attend this live program in the
President Pro Tem’s Office on the 2nd Floor of the State House off the
main lobby near the front door.

We go to a lot of press conferences and other press events and we
are usually treated very well by those holding the event and members of
the press. But today was different.

We decided to attend this event because it was about the impact of
blogs on the legislative process and well…we are a blog. Even more
important, we are a blog that covers politics and we very frequently
discuss the impact of new media on politics. If anyone should be at
this event IT’S US.

But when we got there, we were kicked out because we are not
“credentialed press.” That’s right. They kicked the bloggers out of
an event about bloggers. Ironic? Stupid? We think so. To say we are
insulted would be a HUGE understatement.

Pretty wild, huh? There’s more, though.

Seeming to corroborate Sen. McConnell’s version of events is this e-mail I received today from Bill Rogers, head of the press association, before I saw the item on The Shot:

Brad:

FYI, Glenn McConnell’s This Week in
the Senate press conference is for accredited media only. The room is very
small and there is no room for the general public. I noticed your blog posting
seemed to invite the public to attend. Only one person showed up, and he was
able to watch from the lobby.

It was an interesting half
hour.

Bill

My response to Bill was apologetic, not knowing the circumstances. And indeed, I generally do leave out phone numbers and such on press releases, to keep hundreds of calls from tying up the lines and preventing anybody from communicating effectively.

Now that I do know the circumstances, I’m not sure what to think. Yeah, if the room was small, you can’t accommodate a crowd. But one guy? I don’t know. Once again, what do y’all think?

20 thoughts on “Minimizing the impact”

LexWolf May 3, 2007 at 7:48 pm

What a hoot! So we had an event by non-bloggers like Neanderthal Jake to explain blogging to other people who are just as clueless about blogging but actual bloggers are not invited. ROTF. I’m sure the kicked-out blogger didn’t miss anything. In fact, I’m surprised he even attempted to get into such a farcical event. Is he maybe a satire blogger who was looking for material?
Moderate Guy May 3, 2007 at 7:55 pm

Why not?
They don’t let engineers have any input on technology legislation, or economists and businessmen have any input into taxes, subsidies, and regulations.
But the legislature will listen to a hired non-technical lobbyist, especially a former politician.
mark g May 3, 2007 at 8:28 pm

The real quesion is why would anyone want to be there if they didn’t have to?
I guess they thought he was a member of the public. He shows up late, doesn’t identify himself. So that makes sense seeing Bill Rodger’s note.
But The Shot reported: “bloggers kicked out.” It seems they had no idea they had kicked out a blogger. Seems misleading.
And then later he wrote it was the senate staff that kicked him out. But no, a little later he wrote it was the SC press association– which he suspected all along.
I guess the question I’d pose– do we expect any journalistic standards from bloggers? Or is it Ok to blog in real-time with errors? And if it is OK to go with bad info– since it’s only blogging after all– should bloggers be treated like “real” journalists?
Tim Cameron May 4, 2007 at 9:02 am

I did clearly identify myself as the editor of the “A Daily Shot” and “A Daily Chaser” to the people in the room. They ask what that was and I said it was one of the largest political blogs in the state. They said this event is for credential media only.
I never said anywhere that it was Senate staff that kicked me out.I like you to try to prove otherwise.
I don’t know exactly who kicked me out, but I will find out soon enough.
Skippy May 4, 2007 at 11:42 am

Off topic – but must read
We know deans, principals, and presidents — it sounded like such a terrific idea at the time, eh? Apparently, the notion that throwing a portal into the world laptop in front of easily distracted and technologically savvy kids doesn’t look so rosy anymore, as the NYTimes is reporting that many schools across America are finally ditching one-to-one laptop programs after seeing “literally no evidence it had any impact on student achievement.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/education/04laptop.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
SGM (ret.) May 4, 2007 at 7:43 pm

Accredited Media = Self-licking Ice Cream Cone
What does that mean, accredited media? A newspaper or network hires someone and declares him “accredited.” Someone holding a press conference or “teleconference” and invites those they expect to disseminate their message. The “credentials” of those invitees are, of course, whatever is accepted by the host.
This is a fine example of how the “accredited media” serves the interests of politicians and others with power and money. Ultimately, it’s a matter of commercial interests of the “accredited” news source.
It’s only by comparing and contrasting multiple “accredited media” stories that one can hope to descry the “truth” of the matter. In isolation, they’re all usually very biased.
Bloggers are no better when it comes to biases, but most certaily have an air of freedom from commercial pressures that’s refreshing.
Randy E May 5, 2007 at 7:55 am

Brad, I’m reading Robert Kennedy by Evans Thomas. The relationship between the politicians/public servants and the press seems to have been remarkably different in those days.
Not only did the press not get involved in the personal lives as much, but they sometimes were employed by these public officials (of course W had Armstrong Williams). RFK was especially good at befriending you guys, even more so than McCain.
What is it like for you?
paul adams May 5, 2007 at 2:13 pm

Randy:
You have one point wrong. McCain hasn’t befriended the press this time around. He has however hired members of the General Assembly, Constitutional officers and or their family members to do his bidding. To be polite and to refrain from boring folks I will not mention their names since they have been amply been mentioned in the press.
Brad Warthen May 6, 2007 at 12:52 am

RFK and I were just good friends.

Seriously, back then journalists were somewhat freer to be human, or so I infer. That was before my generation (starting work in 1974, the year of Nixon’s resignation) made a cult of the totally detached, adversarial journalist. Detachment was valued before then, to be sure, but the post-Watergate journalists made it more of an orthodoxy.

I get along well with lots of people, but there’s no one out there who thinks I won’t criticize him or her because of friendship. Not if they know the score. I’ll write pretty much anything that strikes me as worth writing about, and people know that. It’s hard to explain. I don’t have a lot of what you’d call "friends," in the sense of people I socialize with outside of work. I have work, and I have a large family, so the idea of going out for dinner with purely social friends is pretty alien to me. It’s hard to explain.

I grew up in the military, and went to about 14 schools. I was always moving from one group of people to another. There are a lot of military brats in journalism. Maybe it’s a social maladjustment thing; I don’t know.

If I consider people to be friends and I write about them, I’m up-front about it. Samuel Tenenbaum is an example of that. If I admire and respect people and I write about them, it’s pretty obvious — Joe Riley, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Joe Lieberman.

And then there is Segolene. I admire her in a different way. That doesn’t keep me from acknowledging, as the Washington Post opined the other day, that Sarkozy may be better for America.

Rambling now. Free association. Maybe it’s because I saw Kerouac on YouTube earlier, being interviewed in French. I like Kerouac — he helped get me and my wife together, although he didn’t know it. He’s not a friend, though.
ed May 6, 2007 at 8:26 pm

It was hosted by SCETV? Forget it…you missed nothing. SCETV is “the gang who couldn’t shoot straight” and that they undertook this at all must mean that they think they see a way to undermine the new media. Whatever conclusions they reach, you can bet they’ll be liberally biased and stacked in favor of reducing the impact of blogs and increasing their own power and influence. My most fervent wish is that state and federal tax dollars were not wasted on SCETV. Ed
LexWolf May 6, 2007 at 10:41 pm

“My most fervent wish is that state and federal tax dollars were not wasted on SCETV”
…. and NPR and PBS.
Herb Brasher May 7, 2007 at 4:34 am

What? We have one station that isn’t driven by the $ sign in it’s programming, and you want rid of it? There wouldn’t be any news on the radio or TV worth listening to if it weren’t for ETV, NPR and the BBC. Any halfway intelligent person can recognize the bias and deal with it. But if there is no content at all, then it doesn’t much matter whether it’s biased or not. At least you have something to challenge your thinking, and don’t have to be constantly subjected to a dumbing down by the advertising industry.
Herb Brasher May 7, 2007 at 4:36 am

Oh, and I was comforted by the fact that Bob McAlister listens to opera on ETV. There is hope for the world, after all.
Brad Warthen May 7, 2007 at 10:37 am

Never have been able to get into opera. Or musicals, either, really.
I like music, but there’s something odd about that whole breaking-out-into-song-in-the-middle-of-a-story thing. I realize it’s a very old art form, but it’s always seemed a little off to me.
Herb Brasher May 7, 2007 at 12:22 pm

Actually, Brad, I’m not a great fan of opera, either. My wife watches it, and I can almost like some parts sometimes. I guess I am burned from my youth–my dad and sister used to listen to the Metropolitan Opera every Saturday afternoon when I was growing up, and that ruined my only time off.
But what was encouraging to me is that even a conservative Republican like Bob can watch ETV.
LexWolf May 7, 2007 at 1:29 pm

“We have one station that isn’t driven by the $ sign in it’s programming, and you want rid of it?”
Not at all. You can keep those things just as long as you support them yourself instead of forcing everyone else to pick up the tab. With the hundreds of TV channels and thousands of radio stations we have nowadays there is simply no longer any excuse for throwing our taxes at these leftist institutions. They need to find a way to get their audience to support them like all the other stations have to do.
“There wouldn’t be any news on the radio or TV worth listening to if it weren’t for ETV, NPR and the BBC. Any halfway intelligent person can recognize the bias and deal with it.”
It’s great that even you admit this bias but why should there be any bias at all? Don’t journalists constantly claim, against all obvious evidence, that they are impartial and unbiased, and that they present all sides of the story? And why should taxpayers be forced to subsidize this bias? Shouldn’t these outlets serve all Americans, not just the leftists? Why can’t we get these public broadcasters to be fair and balanced? Ooops, guess we need Fox News for that!
jemiljan May 8, 2007 at 2:02 am

Lex Wolf- now what could you possibly have against Big Bird? Catch the show on the Mormons?
Are you implying that the folks at Fox are serious experts on what constitutes NPOV?
Hardly!
LexWolf May 8, 2007 at 3:20 pm

I have nothing against Big Bird and shows on Mormons but if you want to watch those get them put on a TV/cable channel just like all the other shows. Then you can support them either by donating money to the channel or providing it with an additional viewer (that would be you) so they can charge more for advertising.
Fox is far more of a neutral channel than most other channels which generally give you a choice only between left and more left.
ed May 9, 2007 at 2:43 pm

Herb, you don’t think ETV is driven by the dollar sign? Have you watched it lately? They routinely have marathon-snorathon money drives. And to advertise themselves as “commercial free” is the biggest lie ever told. They have very nearly as many ads as does commercial TV. Finally, if you don’t think they’re dollar driven, listen to their wailing and moaning anytime someone proposes that their public funds be cut. Simply put, this is crappy programming that could not compete were it not for government subsidy. Ed
Herb Brasher May 10, 2007 at 8:17 pm

Ed, I don’t think you are watching it. I can pretty much watch a whole film on ETV without mind-numbing idiotic commercials.
I listened to Performance Today while out doing work-related errands today. No commercials; no money drive. And when there is a money drive, well, you can do two things–contribute, or tune it out. But all in all, it is about providing some needed programming.