Last week, Seattle blogger Melissa Westbrook, who runs “Save Seattle Schools,” was told that she couldn’t ask questions during a press conference. When asked by another blog about the issue, a Seattle School District spokesperson said the event was for media organizations that “provided unbiased coverage and subscribe to journalistic ethics.” Quoting from the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics, the spokesperson added, “It is our opinion that Ms. Westbrook’s blog does not fit into that category.”
Well, that didn’t sit well in Seattle, where bloggers are usually standard issue at press events. Word about the denial spread quickly via Twitter, and the school district reversed its policy. “Our practice is to include bloggers in news releases and media roundtables, and now in press conferences,” a spokesperson told Slog, an alt-weekly blog. “Seattle Public Schools’ interaction with those who report on and comment on education evolves along with changes in the media industry and the ways in which our community accesses information.”
I imagine that similar restrictive policies are standard practice in most cities, and I would invite agencies to learn from the Seattle experience. The crux of this, to me, is how Westbrook explains the importance of what she’s doing in a new social media world:
I may not be a journalist in the truest sense of the word but I know this district better than any reporter in Seattle. At Save Seattle Schools blog, we try to use our knowledge of the district to ask the hard questions, give cogent analysis and yes, some commentary/opinion. We invite our readers to do the same.
Or as Slog says it, “Welcome to the modern day, Seattle Schools.”