The Capitol Correspondents Assn. has voted to bring bloggers into the association, allowing them to become credentialed members of the Capitol press corps with access to the legislative floors and most news conferences. Pres. Steve Geissinger with MediaNews reports the vote concluded last night with 34 in favor of credentialing bloggers and 3 against it.
Geissinger says about half the membership voted. A pretty good turn out in his estimation since a third of the members are TV cameramen and still photographers, none of whom voted. At issue were amendments to the association bylaws that opened membership to others than full time reporters working for major media outlets. Under the new rules, members must still cover state government and politics but need only derive 50% of their income from media jobs, which opens the door to part-timers and the self employed.
Geissinger says there's no immediate danger of news conferences becoming "zoos"because only a handful of Capitol bloggers meet the criteria at this time. There's also no reason to believe that the new rules will permit the credentialing of a blogger paid by a political party, trade association or some other special interest group. Geissinger says the bylaws already contain a conflict of interest clause, so that's a non issue. The issue of blogger credentialing arose a while back when a blogger applied for CCA membership, triggering a discussion of blogging as a legitimate journalistic activity. By approving the new rules, which were drafted CCA's board of directors, the CCA membership has recognized that, as Geissinger says, "We're in the Internet age."
The Capitol Morning Report
Sacramento, CA
3/1/2007
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