Frankie Flack: Time to start credentialing journalists

This isn’t the right time to be making this argument, what with the absolutely asinine blackballing of SCOTUSblog from the Senate press gallery, but it has to be said: it’s time to start credentialing journalists.

I know, I know: that’s the kind of statement that make the guardians of New Journalism — the Jeff Jarvis and the Clay Shirkeys –– go on apoplectic tirades about how defining “journalist” is the first step toward fascism or corporate coffee or the death of AP style or something. But the reality is that we’ve seen some significant muddying of the question of who is and is not a journalist, and a little clarity would help everyone out a great deal.

This struck me while I was reading Bekah Grant‘s wonderfully self-centered rant on the evils of PR. One plank in Grant’s broadside is that she once received — from a well-meaning PR person — a six-foot locker stuffed with deodorant.

I sympathize. It’s logical for a hard-working journalist, surrounded by other hard-working journalists, to wonder what the hell could possibly possess a flack to send such a silly piece of swag. And the locker is only the most egregious example.

I know a lot of journalists who have build turrets in their cubicle out of free books they’ll never read (let alone review). Add that to the gadgets, the pens and the occasional necktie, and it’s easy to come to conclusion that my people are, at best, delusional.

Except that we’re not crazy. There’s a huge population of people out there who are essentially on the take, cranking out blog posts in hopes of getting deodorant lockers or devices to review or — the pinnacle of the non-journalist blogger: the “sponsored post,” done for cash (with the proper disclosure, of course).

For PR guys, the message from these folks isn’t the least bit subtle. It’s pay for play. Now, these non-journalist bloggers are not without influence, and we’re going to continue to court them. We’ll pay them to write about subject matters of importance to our clients, we’ll send ’em free gizmos so they’ll review our products, we’ll concoct goofy stunts to garner some attention for our deodorant.

And there isn’t a clear line between those guys and what I believe to be legit journalists. You see them at conferences, bold as brass, wearing “media” badges. To the untrained eye, a blogger for money looks a lot like a straight-laced independent journalist. So sometimes we get confused, and we send a six-foot locker to a journalist that takes the craft seriously. I’m sorry about that. If you want us flacks to knock it off, you legit guys are going to have to start policing the borders.

Maybe you don’t need a formal credential (lanyard and all). But if you see a paid shill with a media badge at a conference, complain. If you see a “sponsored post” product review of one of the companies you cover, call out the blogger (and the company). If you’re part of a journalist association, purge it of anyone who is taking swag for The Man.

After all, even flacks know that when deodorant lockers are outlawed, only outlaws will have deodorant lockers.