INDCJournal: DNCC Credential Coverage

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July 09, 2004

DNCC Credential Coverage

Posted by Bill

I've been interviewed by CBS Marketwatch and the Associated Press today, so who knows, perhaps this story has legs. Teeny-tiny, itty-bitty legs. Then again ... when you consider the fact that the media has largely ignored the discovery of chemical weapons shells and enriched nuclear material in Iraq ... I doubt it.

UPDATE: Here's the CBS story. No mention of the fact that Oxblog was invited AFTER we were uninvited.

DEMOCRATS BLUNDER WITH BLOGGERS

WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- The Democratic National Committee has rescinded
invitations to 20 Web loggers to attend its national convention in
Boston late this month.

"It's purely a space issue," said Peggy Wilhide, a spokeswoman for the
convention. "We accidentally accredited more people than we have space
for in the Fleet Center." Slightly more than 50 Web loggers were
originally cleared for passes, she said.

Bill Ardolino, one of the rejected, received an e-mail from the
Democrats calling his credential acceptance letter "not properly
authorized" by convention planners. "Upon further review of the overall
site capacity at the Fleet Center, we are no longer able to issue your
organization a DNCC Press Gallery Credential," it said.

The publisher of INDCJournal.com said it didn't sound right. "If my
guess is correct, an after-action review of the content of my site
caused them to disinvite me," Ardolino said. He told MarketWatch.com, "I
always expected they would review the political leanings of bloggers."

A similar on-again/off-again situation faced John Tabin, a columnist
for the American Spectator. Tabin wrote that " many in the blogosphere
... conclude that the DNCC Press Gallery was eliminating bloggers by
ideology."

Eric Schnure, the Democratic Convention's official blogger, denies the
charge. "We screwed up. We credentialed more bloggers than we have space
for," he wrote on the convention's Web log. "Our error was one of pure
logistics and not political leanings. Take us at our word."

Wilhide said that about 20 bloggers had their credentials canceled.
She said 18 of them could be considered liberals, while two were
conservatives. About 200 applications for passes were received, she
said.

"The vast majority of those applications came from left-leaning or
progressive bloggers," Schnure said. "Therefore, the vast majority of
credentialed bloggers are left-leaning and progressive. Likewise, the
vast majority of bloggers who received a credential in error are also
left-leaning and progressive."

UPDATE: AP story in the Boston Globe. Note that I am not really "out nearly $1,000," (more like $150-$200) as I will likely only have to pay the cancellation fees. Still a bummer.

Other outlets that picked up the same AP or Marketwatch stories:

USA Today

Investors Business Daily

Forbes

... and many others. And what's interesting about this? I can't find any examples where these online stories actually LINK MY SITE. Traditional media is clueless. Even blogger Matt Margolis didn't bother to link! It's the internet, kids ... we can actually link to relevant items in the story to enhance the information in the article ...

Bryan from Arguing With Signposts pointed this phenomenon out to me.

Posted by Bill at July 9, 2004 01:39 PM | TrackBack (7)

Comments

I wouldn't be surprised if the DNCC decides to re-credential you. Press attention like this isn't always a good thing.

--|PW|--

Posted by: pennywit at July 9, 2004 02:17 PM

I told you the Warhol Moment was coming. I know of these things. LeatherPenguin's got Rubber Soul.

Posted by: TC-LeatherPenguin at July 9, 2004 03:46 PM

LP - I don't consider a random AP interview and marketwatch a Warhol moment. The AP story might not even get picked up anywhere. Give me my own column in the WaPo and you can throw my image up in triplicate on some soup cans, or whatever.

Posted by: Bill from INDC Journal at July 9, 2004 03:50 PM

Interesting... a comment on the Cyberjournalist web-site raises an eyebrow.

I got asked for further information after I applied, was sent a letter in the mail saying "thanks but no thanks" and then just today [maybe four days later] got a phone call from someone at DNCC saying "oh hey, ignore that letter, you're credentialed now" I thought it was a bit of a long shot in the first place [my blog http://librarian.net is not that political, very left-leaning] but I guess I'm going to go.
Posted by: jessamyn at July 9, 2004 01:15 PM

Posted by: Xoxotl at July 9, 2004 04:36 PM

"Wilhide said that about 20 bloggers had their credentials canceled. She said 18 of them could be considered liberals, while two were conservatives."

Damn, Bill, if I'd known you were a liberal...

Posted by: El Jefe at July 9, 2004 04:53 PM

On certain issues, the survival of Western Civilization NOT being one of them ...

Posted by: Bill from INDC Journal at July 9, 2004 05:57 PM

Eric Schnure, the Democratic Convention's official blogger, denies the charge. "We screwed up. We credentialed more bloggers than we have space for," he wrote on the convention's Web log. "Our error was one of pure logistics and not political leanings. Take us at our word."

Oh, of course!

Posted by: insomni at July 9, 2004 06:55 PM

By the way, the link to the CBS story requires registration... you might want to post a snippet of it.

Posted by: Watcher at July 10, 2004 01:41 PM

Here's a link to the marketwatch story at Investor's Daily:

http://www.investors.com/breakingnews.asp?journalid=22057596&brk=1

Note that there are no links to any of the weblogs.

Posted by: Bryan at July 10, 2004 08:36 PM

Yeah, they goofed ...

Posted by: Bill from INDC at July 10, 2004 09:06 PM

It's the nature of syndication that hyperlinks rarely get included; AP stories, after all, are still primarily designed to be printed in dead-tree format. That's no reason not to include a URL in parentheses, though. I guess they assume everyone knows how to Google now.

Posted by: John Tabin at July 11, 2004 11:27 PM

Just remember us little guys during your 15 minutes of fame. :)

Posted by: Cam at July 12, 2004 09:41 AM