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As a blogger, a journalist trying to break into a major daily, and someone who has a masters of journalism, I really think that allowing bloggers/citizen journalists credentials to big events or press conferences would inhibit the functionality of the events for everyone involved.

Journalists who are in media scrums are like a pack of wolves, we fight and bicker over scraps(quotes, facts, etc) but we all more or less move in the same general direction for the same purpose. This allows us to get the most possible information in a short amount of time from the people we need access to. This is the essence of reportage, time management.

Allowing in someone who is untrained in interview methodology and etiquette within a news collecting situation hurts everyone involved, and in turn hurts the product and the reader is less informed overall. Bloggers don't have to worry about an editor who wants specific things asked. One out of left field question can kill a media scrum or press conference and someone untrained and unseasoned really would not have the expertise to do this.

What people fail to really see is that many bloggers take none of the journalistic rigors of someone who must put there work through an editorial process every day. With that said, I disagree with the editorial process and would love to have the freedom of a blogger when doing real journalism.

I really don't see why a blogger would ever need to go to a press conference. Most bloggers or mainstream journalists who are worth a damn don't break news from a press conference or an event. Good journalism comes from getting your hands dirty and I don't mean from dough nut frosting on the media buffet table. It actually seems antithetical to what blogging is supposed to be about...street level guerrilla journalism, not press boxes and continental breakfasts.

If you want to be the press, go to J School, then get a job and hump a beat for a few years and earn the privilege of covering events as the press. If you want to be a journalist as a hobby, blog it up, but you don't deserve to be treated as journalist because to be honest you have not paid any dues.

Learn more about this author, Nicholas Nedin.
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