Have an account? Log in to leave your comments!
journal: think
The Press Pass Predicament [UPDATED]
What counts as "media" anymore?
I’m sure by now you’ve heard the chorus of voices commenting on IDG’s policies regarding press access to Macworld Expo next month. There have been a number of theories as to why IDG is limiting press access this year. The official IDG stance is that demand for press passes is high this year, so stronger limitations have been put in place. Others theorize that Apple’s culture is changing and that they are less community-oriented than they have been. Some see it as Apple and IDG getting back at the Mac Web for live text feeds of previous events. Still others see it as a way to keep your average Joe from starting a blog, posting about Apple, and getting press passes (i.e. to restrict it to professional journalists). However, this does seem to be the latest episode in a series of issues that have brought up the question, what counts as “media” anymore?
Before I get started here, I want to make a couple of notes. First of all, I am not bitter about Deep Thought not getting press access to MWSF, mainly because, well, I never fully expected to get press access anyway! We do not meet all of IDG’s guidelines. We will be attending, however. Secondly, while I may use other sites as an example, this article is not about them.
The answer to what is “media” has become more and more blurry due to the rise of blogs which allow for just about anyone to start writing. It’s all a massive blob of gray area these days. But the thing is, of course, some of those blogs contain some really good stuff. Some bloggers churn out some interesting opinions. Some even break news stories on a regular basis. Another issue, however, is what counts as a blog. Is ThinkSecret a blog? AppleXnet? Even though I am a cofounder of this site, I’m not even sure whether or not Deep Thought is a blog (it has blogs, but is the site itself a blog?).
And how does one distinguish professional media from hobbyists? I am two semesters away from earning my Bachelor’s Degree in English from UC Berkeley. Will that diploma make me any more professional than I am know? How about the case of Dan Pourhadi, who despite being a high school student, writes for various sites and is a contributor to MacAddict? How much of a professional is he? Is Dennis Sellers of Macsimum News? Is his site his livelihood? A hobby? Perhaps what distinguishes a professional from a hobbyist or amateur is not whether they make much money off their reporting but how professional their news reporting is.
I’m not even going to attempt to answer these questions (you shouldn’t either, unless you have plenty of time to kill). If anything, IDG simply has not done a great job at enforcing their own guidelines. IDG’s official guidelines for media access are as follows:
Only commercial news outlets will be issued media badges.
A commercial news outlet:
- Has a paid subscriber base or is advertising sponsored
- Publishes original news content at least once per week by employed staff
- Contains original news content above and beyond links, forums, troubleshooting tips and reader/viewer contributions
- Does not violate copyright regulations (e.g., illegal software downloads)
[...]
The following groups are not eligible for media badges:
- Production companies
- User Group Newsletter staff [I interpret this to be a printed or electronic periodical distributed by Mac User Groups]
- Graphic design firms
- Marketing, advertising and public relations
For what it’s worth, Mac OS X’s built-in dictionary defines news as “newly received or noteworthy information, esp. about recent or important events.” In other words, news is about events and facts; not opinion, analysis and such.
Let’s take a quick look at various Mac sites and see how well the fall into these rules. In his latest piece of commentary, Trent Lapinski of AppleXnet mentions the following:
According to IDG’s PR Manager, Mike Sponseller, the following sites have been denied media access to MacWorld San Francisco 2006: SpyMac, TUAW, AppleXnet, DifferentDistrict, DTgeeks, and MyPersonalGetAway.
[...]
Only a few sites are getting full media access such as Macsimumnews.com, and MyMac.com.
I’m going to take a look at four sites mentioned above and see how well they fit into the guidelines: AppleXnet, DifferentDistrict, MacsimumNews, and MyMac. All the sites below have great content, but do they qualify as “Commercial media” according to IDG?
AppleXnet
- Advertiser- or subscriber-supported: yes
- Publishes original news content at least once a week: yes
- News content beyond links, forums, tips, reader submissions: yes
- Does not violate copyright laws: yes
DifferentDistrict
- Advertiser- or subscriber-supported: yes
- Publishes original news content at least once a week: as far as I can tell, yes
- News content beyond links, forums, tips, reader submissions: yes; headline news blurbs similar in style to other Mac news outlets
- Does not violate copyright laws: yes
MacsimumNews
- Advertiser- or subscriber-supported: yes
- Publishes original news content at least once a week: yes
- News content beyond links, forums, tips, reader submissions: yes; news blurbs and longer articles
- Does not violate copyright laws: yes
MyMac
- Advertiser- or subscriber-supported: yes
- Publishes original news content at least once a week: no, content is centered around “features” (tutorials, reviews, comics, some opinion) and blogs. News appears to be limited to special events only.
- News content beyond links, forums, tips, reader submissions: see above
- Does not violate copyright laws: yes
IDG does “reserve the right to refuse media badges, without cause,” which is a nice cover-your-ass legal clause (and is pretty typical for such things; we used a similar one for our recent giveaway). Clearly IDG is within their rights, but the distribution of passes is very spotty to say the least. Also, IDG only admits sites with two or more paid staff members. I won’t comment on that, since I have no idea which sites pay their staff and which don’t (nor do I care). I’d sure like to hear from someone from IDG directly about how they decide between qualifying sites and non-qualifying sites. Is it track record? Is it name recognition? Simply space limitations? Do they draw random names from a hat? Or do they give press access on a first-come-first-served basis? I sure wouldn’t mind hearing directly from someone at IDG to clarify this issue. Yes, IDG, that was a hint.
UPDATE: It seems Dave Winer, one of the pioneers of blogging and podcasting (but is in no way a journalist) received press passes too (link). Okay, I’m fine with the fact that Deep Thought didn’t get press passes--we don’t even meet all of IDG’s requirements, as I mentioned earlier. I’m also fine with the fact that IDG imposed restrictions. No problem there. And I have nothing against Mr. Winer. But I do start getting irritated when I see people who are nowhere remotely close to being able to claim they are journalists getting press passes, despite IDG informing MyMac that “If you’re legitimate media—you get a press pass. If you’re not media or just a blogger or a fan site, then you won’t get a press pass.” Am I missing something? Anyone?
IDG, stick to your own guidelines, please! You’ll cause yourselves less trouble!
 |
5 | 1117 |
| Nick | comments | views |
thinkback
Something’s telling me that no one at IDG is doing a point-by-point breakdown for every blogger and website that applies for a media badge. For one thing, it would take some significant labor wages to accomplish that, which they’re probably too busy (or too cheap) to fund. But that still leaves the question, what do they look at to determine who qualifies and who doesn’t?
| Dec. 14, 2005 | |
| Arden | 12:54 am |
I agree. If they would just stick to their guns, there would be no problem.
As far as “what constitutes journalism” goes, dedication is the identifying factor. If I was IDG, I’d keep out the bigs because they would throw one generalist reporter at it who would write up some standard anti-Apple line or give it surface coverage and then move on to the next assignment. The regular bloggers, the Mac-only press, the computer press—those are the guys I’d admit. The mainstream bigs may have the resources, but they won’t marshall them. And even if they did marshall them, quality is a huge concern. Put it this way—who needs MacWorld to be covered the way that the press covered Hurricane Katrina or the Oil-for-food scandal? Thanks but no thanks, guys. I’ll read my rumors in the Star if I want that.
Indeed, and I’ve seen it mentioned before… what is the real purpose of press coverage? To raise awareness and public interest. Who does this best? The little guys like us, the people passionate about their computers who happen to run a small website, and will take the time to write about their experiences in full detail. What do the big media companies do? They mention that Macworld is happening, and not much more. How is this good press coverage? How does it raise public interest in attending?
|
| Dec. 14, 2005 | |
| Arden | 8:23 am |
1.
It’s a tough situation. I feel that media organizations (newspapers, TV, magazines, etc.) should get the first wave of passes, because there is simply no doubt in my mind (mine, not anyone else’s I am most definitely speaking for myself here) that a news organization has the better infrastructure to cover the event properly.
After that, I don’t really know what to say.
I hate to make it sound like bloggers aren’t as important as journalists - because there’s obviously some great positives about what a blog/fannews site can do.
But most have small staffs, no professional training, no professionally developed code of ethics (see Trent Lapinski airing his dirty laundry, then having to rescind it from the article - but he still places it in the forums and links it to his front page). It’s just not as refined, and therefore should be secondary when considering news coverage of an event.
Tough situation. Will be interesting to see what comes of the whole thing. I believe bloggers and journalists can coexist (and bet he same thing in some circumstances) - but when you only have so much space and so many requests, it’s always a difficult call.