Publication Items

"Who Gets A Press Pass?" Report Explores Media Access [1]

Experienced journalists know that a press credential is often critical to gaining physical or virtual access to news events and information. It's an aspect of information access rarely covered by the news media themselves. A new report from the Digital Media Law Project at Harvard looks systematically at who gets a press card and who does not.

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Journalism & Media [3]
Visibility:
Public [4]
- Read more about "Who Gets A Press Pass?" Report Explores Media Access [1]
When Is a Policy Not a Policy? When Reporters Want To Talk to EPA Staff [5]

For some years now, under multiple administrations, journalists who have called EPA scientists and other experts asking to talk to them about matters large and small have almost universally been told something like, "I'm not allowed to talk to news media without Press Office permission." Yet EPA officials maintain they do not have a press policy. SEJ's WatchDog filed June 10, 2014 the first of what will be an ongoing series of FOIA requests to get to the bottom of this ironic situation.

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Journalism & Media [3]
Policy [6]
Visibility:
Public [4]
- Read more about When Is a Policy Not a Policy? When Reporters Want To Talk to EPA Staff [5]
SEJ Objects to EPA "No Attribution" Presser on Carbon Rule [7]

SEJ objected strenuously [7] last week to the ground rules for a telephone press briefing on U.S. EPA's carbon emissions rule for existing power plants. In a June 5, 2014, letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, [8] the Society of Environmental Journalists objected to the "truncated, anonymous 'background' tele-briefing for news media" held on the June 2 roll-out day. The text of EPA's June 10 response to SEJ's letter is here. [9]

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Environmental Politics [10]
Journalism & Media [3]
Visibility:
Public [4]
- Read more about SEJ Objects to EPA "No Attribution" Presser on Carbon Rule [7]
"SPJToolbox" Catalogues Vast Gumshoe Resources [11]

If you are a serious journalist and have not yet discovered the "SPJ Toolbox," you are in for a treat. The website offers useful sources for a wide range of topics of interest, especially to investigative reporters. Topics include protecting sources, privacy, data visualization, digital verification, transcription tools, rights-free photos, mobile journalism, public records, copy-editing, and more.

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Journalism & Media [3]
Visibility:
Public [4]
- Read more about "SPJToolbox" Catalogues Vast Gumshoe Resources [11]
Reporters Curious About Tar Sands Not Very Welcome in Canada [12]

Reporter Emily Atkin of the Climate Progress blog told recently of flying into Fort McMurray, Alberta to see the tar sands and being hassled for some 45 minutes by "security" officials because she was a journalist — including being told "We might have to send you back to the States."

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Energy & Fuel [13]
Environmental Politics [10]
Journalism & Media [3]
Natural Resources [14]
Region:
Canada [15]
Visibility:
Public [4]
- Read more about Reporters Curious About Tar Sands Not Very Welcome in Canada [12]
Getting the Most from Conferences [16]

Freelance writer and editor Jennifer Weeks extolls the virtues of freelancers attending conferences and shares her wisdom on choosing ones that meet your needs ("SEJ’s annual conference... my favorite after a decade of freelancing"), and what to do before, during and after. Photo: © Roger Archibald.

SEJ Publication Types:
Freelance Files [17]
Topics on the Beat:
Journalism & Media [3]
Visibility:
Public [4]
- Read more about Getting the Most from Conferences [16]
News Media Roll Eyes at Obama Openness Pledges [18]

Some of the eye-rolling was chronicled in a May 1, 2014, post in the blog Mediaite. It quoted New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson calling the Obama administration "the most secretive White House I have ever dealt with." The story came out just a couple of days before the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Government [19]
Journalism & Media [3]
Visibility:
Public [4]
- Read more about News Media Roll Eyes at Obama Openness Pledges [18]
Journos Fight Feds To Keep Drones As News Tool [20]

More than a dozen news media organizations filed a brief May 6, 2014, arguing that the Federal Aviation Administration is violating the First Amendment with its limits on drones. The media groups were intervening in the appeal of a judge's overturning of a $10,000 Federal Aviation Administration fine imposed on Raphael Pirker, a videographer who shot a promotional video of the University of Virginia campus.

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Journalism & Media [3]
Laws & Regulations [21]
Technology [22]
Transportation [23]
Visibility:
Public [4]
- Read more about Journos Fight Feds To Keep Drones As News Tool [20]
"Breaking New Ground: A Personal History" [24]

SEJ Publication Types:
BookShelf [25]
Topics on the Beat:
Activism [26]
Agriculture [27]
Climate Change [28]
Food [29]
Journalism & Media [3]
People & Population [30]
Water & Oceans [31]
Visibility:
Public [4]
- Read more about "Breaking New Ground: A Personal History" [24]
Journalists, Lost in Space? [32]

SEJ President Don Hopey, after seeing the movie “Gravity,” likened reporters to astronauts in the film – out there all alone, a journalistic generation lost in space. But we are doing good work – both on our jobs and in our organization.

SEJ Publication Types:
SEJ Presidents Report [33]
Topics on the Beat:
Journalism & Media [3]
Visibility:
Public [4]
- Read more about Journalists, Lost in Space? [32]

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