Guidelines For Issuing Press Credentials To Bloggers

The Washington Capitals asked Eric McErlain (whose blog Off Wing Opinion is very respected in the blogging hockey community) to come up with guidelines for issuing press credentials to bloggers.

I'm posting this here in the hopes of avoid the "blogs" crap. Keep in mind that most pro teams are wrestling with this issue right now. Also keep in mind that some of you may turn to a blog in order to keep your hand in certain sports between jobs or to increase your industry profile.

Anyway - here is what Eric came up with:

Eric is looking for serious input as this is not the final draft.

http://www.ericmcerlain.com/offwingopinion/archives/006447.php#006447

 

I like the line about "send the link to the SID"...

 

Well, the middlin'-sized paper where I'm working started live-blogging SEC games last year, when I was not here.

We got a credential to send out blogger to Thursday's Miss. State-South Carolina ESPN game with little fuss. The deal is, no play-by-play. Which would suck anyway.

Sunday's Ole Miss-Memphis game? No, sorry, no room at the Oxford Inn. We can "live" blog off the TV, I suppose.

Another brick in the wall of Fortress Orgeron? I dunno.

 

Ole Miss fans would probably rather read a blog from the Grove anyway.

 

* Access is a privilege, not a right, and the organization reserves the right to revoke this privilege at any time. The organization also reserves the right to deny/revoke credentials to any outlet that publishes objectionable content.

The second part of that would seem problematic for anyone attempting to cover a beat, unless "objectionable" was defined better.

 

This particular criteria probably applies in all press boxes, but any team that went around abusing it would take too much crap if they barred a newspaper reporter over negative coverage. They probably really mean "libelous" but wouldn't want to limit themselves by inserting a legal term there.

 

3-day window to consider application? Not fair for anybody. Sometimes a trade is made, a big player is called up, a special circumstance. It should be one business day for all media.

I've never heard of those 3rd-party traffic monitors. I'm pretty sure Nielsen ranks. So I'd set a spot in the Nielsen rankings, and if they make the cut, they're in. I would also require that the site is a commercial venture - i.e. accepts legit ads from legit companies - not the Google stuff. Here's the bottom line: A blog can be "respected," but to credential, it must have hits.

Forget the line about e-mailing the P.R. guy. If the blog is big enough to receive a credential, P.R. guy can find it himself.

The point here is to give big, legit bloggers the exact same privileges as the mainstream media-- because they are the mainstream media now-- while restricting the guys doing it as a hobby. The answer is NOT to give the hobbyists some half-assed privileges.

Either you're in, and you get treated like everybody else, or you're not in.

 

Yes.... they should supply a link.

Blogs are like fleas, newspapers more like dogs.

 

Supplying a link is reasonable.

I think for the most part, it's hard to argue with. I think using either Nielsen or Alexa is a good metric (although Sitemeter is OK, if you have a smaller site, not in the top 100K) — as is the requirement of a certain amount of time in service.

The PR staffs have to have some ways to delineate the professional sites from the teenagers.

I think it's a good first step and bodes well — if we see the same thing from other pro sports in the years to come.

 

Lots of different people get into regular season games anyway through various means. On two occasions in a MLB pressbox I sat next to a guy who spent the whole game posting on a message board for that team.

 

That's why I said the part about the advertisers.

Anybody with a good laser printer and a bank account can make up a pay stub.

But if half a million people read your website, and it's sponsored by McDonald's, now we're talking.