The Credentialing Conundrum
[Cross-posted from National Journal's Beltway Blogroll by Danny Glover]
Many political bloggers like to think of themselves as modern-day pamphleteers, after the tradition of Thomas Paine and others who rallied British colonists for the revolution that made America. A Web site called The New Pamphleteer even caters to them.
Others liken the emergence of the political blogosphere to the early American press, where partisan passion in print was a virtue and objectivity most assuredly would have been a vice.
Today's new media, in other words, is a return to a much older media time in America. The journalism of the blogosphere is more about advocating a world view than it is about informing the world.
Based on what I heard yesterday from the people planning the Democratic and Republican presidential conventions in 2008, I'd say America's dominant political parties have gotten the message -- and share that vision of blogs. They see the blogosphere as a great tool to be exploited for partisan ends and bloggers as footsoldiers in an online militia.
That's why you're probably not going to see either party treating bloggers like traditional journalists when it comes to granting credentials for the conventions.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans have made final decisions about which bloggers will win the limited blog credentials for convention access. But comments by spokesmen for both convention committees don't offer much reason for Republican bloggers to hope they will get access to the Democratic convention, or vice versa.
After I posted yesterday's entry about blog credentials for the conventions, I quizzed Jason Rosenberg of the Democratic National Convention Committee about the possibility of GOP bloggers getting some space. Democrats are working to ensure that Democratic bloggers with limited audiences will be at the convention, but niche Republican bloggers may not be so lucky.
"We fully anticipate the presence of conservative bloggers at the Democratic convention," Rosenberg said, noting that some GOP bloggers should qualify for access as traditional media. But GOP bloggers without those kinds of connections may be hard-pressed to cover the convention anywhere other than from home in their pajamas.
"It's going to be a case-by-case situation" for any of those bloggers," Rosenberg said. They could apply along with Democratic bloggers, but it doesn't sound like their applications will be treated equally -- as would both journalists and bloggers who work for mainstream media outlets.
Matt Burns, the spokesman for the GOP convention, also could not say whether Democratic bloggers would be eligible for special blog credentials.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. The parties are within their rights to decide who gets credentials and what criteria they must meet. But making that choice does pose a broader credentialing conundrum.
If bloggers want government officials to see them as media when it comes to covering Congress, the White House, state legislatures and everyday news, they should unite in this instance and demand parity regardless of party. Otherwise, they risk being seen as people who embrace equal treatment when it works to their media advantage but accept unequal treatment for a political advantage.
In the long run, that makes it much trickier to decide who should get press credentials unrelated to party functions.
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