Police shouldn't control press accreditation, says denied NY blogger

David Wallis is a published author; has interviewed several world leaders; and written for publications including the the New York Times Magazine, Slate.com, the Washington Post, the Times and the Observer.

Wallis is also CEO of Featurewell.com, a service which syndicates news to newspapers and magazines worldwide.

So, he says, he was a little surprised to be refused a press pass by the New York police department in August 2007.

Wallis quickly joined forces with two other bloggers in a similar predicament - Rafael Martínez Alequin - (Your Free Press) and Ralph E. Smith (The Guardian Chronicle) - and launched legal action against the department in November 2008, a case defended by lawyer Norman Siegel.

Last week saw the NY Blogger Three's first success: they were issued press passes before the case went to court.

This is not where the lawsuit stops, but just a sign that 'the city realise they [sic] have a losing case', according to Wallis.

"We're going all the way [with the lawsuit]. We're not going away and I think we will be victorious either in a settlement or we will have a judge look at the facts," he tells Journalism.co.uk.

For Wallis, there is something fundamentally wrong with the way press accreditation is handled in New York.

"The police department is bending over backwards and making allowances for large companies and traditional media," he claims, adding that it is 'giving a much harder time to non-traditional media.'

"They're [sic] behind the times. The online media is becoming the media."

It's no longer a case of bloggers versus journalists, he adds.

"I would take exception now to the term blogger or journalists. Frankly now, most bloggers are either journalists or columnists."

The three complainants have all held press credentials in the past and are known as journalists making this situation 'indefensible', he adds.

A combination of post-9/11 paranoia and suggestions that one of the trio 'had upset the mayor previously' may have contributed to the decision by the police department, Wallis believes.

Journalism.co.uk has contacted the New York police department, but is yet to receive a response.

"I just think it's shocking that the Bloomberg administration, of all the administrations in the past, has decided to crack down on credential issues," he says. 

Yet Wallis still thinks a system of press accreditation is valuable.

"There should be an accreditation process, which should be fair, equitable and not arbitrary nor run by the police department," he says.

"Press credentials would come in handy for lesser known journalists or smaller publications."

The bloggers are not trying to change the world, he adds - it is a federal case filed in New York and it is not clear what the precedents would be, as US press regulation varies from state to state.

But, says Wallis, it is time to address the 'long-noticed' fact that 'journalists, freelancers, have gotten a bit of short shrift lately'.

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