For many reporters and commentators, SCOTUSblog.com has become an indispensable part of reporting on American government and politics. It is often the first to publish new opinions online, and the first source for professional and professorial commentary on new Supreme Court decision. Beyond simply covering Supreme Court decisions, SCOTUSblog also covers the court’s procedures, calendar, and the process of nominating and confirming new Justices of the Supreme Court.
But now SCOTUSblog has run yet again into a problem that plagues online media, that of official credentialing by institutions still tied to the paper-and-ink model of information distribution. It’s a problem with which I have my own experience.
Despite being sponsored by Bloomberg Law, a leading information service, SCOTUSblog has been refused media credentials by the United States Senate, one of the ways media become eligible for Supreme Court credentials. The Supreme Court, in essence, requires credentialed media to be supported by a broad-based of advertisers – a single primary sponsor isn’t sufficient, even if the sponsor itself is a subscription-based service. Freepress.net, a First Amendment and information access advocacy organization summarizes the Court’s requirements:
To get a permanent press pass for the Supreme Court, you first have to get Senate and House credentials through the Congressional Press Galleries.
The criteria for accreditation to the Senate Daily Press Gallery state that an applicant “must not be engaged in any lobbying or paid advocacy, advertising, publicity or promotion work for any individual, political party, corporation, organization, or agency of the U.S. government …”
In the rules for the Senate Periodical Press Gallery, one guideline states, “Applicants must also be employed by a periodical that is published for profit and is supported chiefly by advertising or by subscription, or by a periodical meeting the conditions in this paragraph but published by a nonprofit organization.” This rule represents a big hurdle for nonprofit journalism organizations, which are not generally supported chiefly by advertising or subscriptions.
The current accreditation process privileges the mainstream journalists who write the rules.
The Georgia State House of Representatives has similar rules for media credentialing:
4. An applicant for press credentials through the press galleries must establish to the satisfaction of the House Communications Office that he or she is a paid correspondent who requires on-site access to House Members and staff.
Correspondents must be employed by a news organization:
(a) With the General Publication periodicals mailing privileges under U.S. Postal Service rules, and which publishes regularly; or
(b) Whose principal business is the regular dissemination of original news to a broad segment of the public.
and on and on they go. But in any case, they mirror the Supreme Court’s bias in favor of (a) ink on paper or television media (b) exclusively produced by full-time employees of advertising-supported corporate media.
In doing so, they assumedly rely on the assumption that advertising-supported media is somehow less biased, despite their often-public protestations that the mainstream media has a liberal bias. But traditional corporate media is the devil they know, and we human beings are creatures of habit more comfortable in well-worn faux-adversarial roles than in the risk that attends embracing the unknown.
Were I so inclined, I would consider reporting these credentialing requirements to the State House “Red Tape Committee” that was set up to learn from businesses how the state could better reduce the regulatory burden it places on them.
It appears clear to me that government institutions are still slow to recognize what is undeniably apparent to the executives at our state’s newspapers – that ink and paper is a dying industry and more and more Georgians and Americans are getting their news online. That those of us who write about politics on our own dime have become an important part of the media biosphere upon whom countless citizens rely for news of their government.
Lucky for us, whose freedoms depend upon the interpretations of the United States Supreme Court, it appears that SCOTUSblog is inclined to continue seeking Court credentials. Aided by legions of lawyers and law professors who depend on SCOTUSblog, I imagine they’ll be well represented and eventually be fully-credentialed.
As a small business person, and frankly, a hard-headed individual, I took another route. Although my current association with InsiderAdvantage.com and James magazine apparently lends me some credibility that I previously lacked, and I am in possession of valid House credentials, I decided simply to never darken that chamber’s doors. It’s been well over a year since I’ve stepped foot there.
There’s plenty I can learn at the Capitol in the Senate, the Governor’s office, where I’ve interviewed the Governor and photographed him for James, or speaking to the elected officials who at least act like they value online media. I even photographed the Speaker of the House in his office for the cover of the most recent James.
It’s paradoxical to me – politicians who, in the public imagination spend every waking hour seeking media attention actually shun those who invest their own time and money in writing about politics for their fellow citizens. Eventually I suppose they’ll learn that those of us pick up the pen every day of our own accord rather than a boss’s insistence can simply choose not to write their names. But the true shame is that the only ones they’re really depriving are the citizens they are meant to serve.
