I don't know what "accredited" means anymore.
IMHO it should mean "real journalists" in this context.
That excludes technical experts who play at journalism on
their blog.
Right, we wouldn't want to encourage reporting by people who
actually know what they're talking about...
Huh!?
Did I ever say anything about preventing people from writing/publishing
anything that they want? NO!
Those people who already know what they are talking about do not
need the kind of assistance that a press conference provides.
What would the goal of accreditation be?
To make sure that the scarce time of the volunteer experts who
are taking questions at the press conference, is not wasted.
The press has existed in its current form for well over a century.
It's a different world from IP networking, and it has its own
traditions and its own processes. If a group of people is serious
about getting its message to the press in a relatively ungarbled
form, then that group of people works with the press in the established
ways. That includes press conferences, and special support for
accredited
members of the press. Even an occasional contributor to a magazine
will probable have a business card with a title like Contributing
Editor.
After all, there are
no restrictions on non-journalists writing anything that
they want so
the IETF doesn't lose anything by restricting a press conference to
people whose dayjob is journalism.
Except openness.
Huh!? There are no restrictions on people writing what they want
so if some conversations are not open to all, then the IETF loses
openness. This is ridiculous because the IETF is full of private
conversations, bar BOFs, private emails, etc. That does not reduce
the openness of the IETF. The professor explaining TCP in a first
year university class does NOT reduce the openness of the IETF.
I would suggest that if the IETF wants more accurate press
coverage, it should, along with managing expectations,
produce press releases.
For most meetings, I don't think the number of tech
journalists that would show up is sufficient to warrant press
conferences, although it might in places like San Francisco.
Press releases would be a great idea. I believe that as we get
closer to IPv4 exhaustion there will be a surge of press interest
in the IETF and that is when a press conference will be useful.
Is there a mechanism in place (requests for free tickets?) that
would give the IETF some indication that there is a sufficient
level of interest to warrant the effort of a press conference?
--Michael Dillon
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