At least that's the message his New Hampshire campaign sent me last night. I would've had a glowing post up today about all the neat approaches to faith the campaign is taking," or maybe how "the audience was really interested in what the Obama campaign had to say," or even maybe something I learned. Instead all I have is this:
A picture of the door to the meeting that I wasn't allowed into because, for better or worse, I blog.
Last night I headed out to Keene, NH to attend one of Obama's "Faith, Action, Change" forums at the small Keene State College student center. Billed as an opportunity for Progressives to discuss their faith in terms of social change, they're free and open to the public. Registration is recommended, but not required. I got to the event a little early and hung around the student center, speaking with an intern, until the event started to begin.
Walking into a small room, Nicole Derse from the political desk of the Obama NH campaign was busy meeting folks. As she turned to me she started to say hello, so I replied with a smile, "Hi, my names Jerid. I'm a blogger."
"Oooooooh, I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave," she shot back. "These events are closed to the press."
I was dumbfounded. Searching for words I spurt out, "But I'm a blogger," as she started to usher me out of the room.
Apparently that didn't matter. It was of no consequence that I'm a Democratically slanted activist who's trying to learn as much about all of the candidates in New Hampshire as I can. It didn't matter that I phonebank and canvas for candidates I support. I didn't matter that I put my "super friendly blogger hat" on when I go to these events and am respectful of folks privacy, taking great care with what I write about. All she saw was the press.
The Obama campaign, along with some of the other prezzies, don't understand the concept of citizen journalists. There's a lot of old school politics out here on the NH campaigns - some of the communications folks desperately need to refresh their understanding of how bloggers work. You see, we're not all the same. Just like regular folks, there are friendly bloggers that want to help, and there are bloggers bent on screwing you. It's up to a campaign to discern who's who and dole out special access depending on such. However, we're regular folks too - we volunteer, vote, and try to help because we believe in the Democratic party. So you can't really lump bloggers entirely into the press category - last time I checked Brian Williams wasn't passing out door hangers for his local Democratic Party. That's hard for folks on campaigns, locked into one particular mentality or another, to understand. It's a nuance to which some campaigns are tone deaf.
Sure, I might get credentialed for some event here and there - but unlike the press I won't get a check for my coverage, I'm not going to report to a publisher, and my future access will be limited because of what I write. Regular press has no problem scoring credentials to GOP events, I'm lucky if I even get a chuckle when I ask. It's smart to credential us for events, it serve campaign's self interest - but that doesn't mean campaigns should limit folks that blog in the same way they do the press. But that might make traditional media upset? Boo hoo.
Now, this was one Podunk "Faith, Action, Change" event in the middle of nowhere will, in the grand scheme of things, have practically no impact on who is our next President. The problem is that it raises this ENORMOUS question of transparency and access. How will blogs be treated by this wave of presidential campaigns; will they they take a dynamic approach to determining who's friendly and will they recognize that a lot of blogs are run by the same folks on their volunteer rosters; or will they stonewall? Obama's approach actually encourages bloggers to be dishonest with his campaign for fear of access - that's not a smart strategy.
And one last thing. The whole question of Obama taking issue with bloggers present at "closed press" events is funny when we remember back to the night Obama wrapped himself up in a big 'ole spread of bloggers at the Ohio Democratic Party State Dinner in 2006. While ODP was still fidgeting with the learning curve of what to do with bloggers (having helped them take back Ohio in '06 they've since learned we're friendly), they decided to exclude them from this particular dinner because it was closed to press. Here's a shot of Obama sitting at the blogger table that he paid for, so bloggers could attend this "closed press" event. Hilarity.
If things don't change fast - with a drastically different approach to blogs from his campaign - he'll have a rough road ahead of him state to state, event to event, as folks learn not to tell Obama they blog. It's a shame really.
X-posted from the Buckeye State Blog's New Hampshire Project.