It’s unfortunate if EA feels they have to block critical journalists from marquee events. Being open and transparent is a hugely valuable part of the EA movement, and even a mixed positive/negative press article is likely to be net good for the movement—especially at the moment with all the negative press going on.
If a journalist is bent on writing criticism, they may well write criticism regardless of if we let them in to an event or not. The counterfactual of not accepting them could potentially make things worse long term too, if they double down and even use the rejection as a reason to criticise more severely.
One great thing to do could be to spend a lot of time making friends with and understanding journalists at the event. Make them feel welcome and connected to people who are there, so perhaps they will be more empathetic and fair when they write their piece?
Someone might be out about being bi at an after-party with friends, but not want to see that detail being confirmed by a fact-checker for a national paper. This doesn’t seem particularly unusual.
This isn’t the only thing that could go wrong, but it’s a straightforward example. Perhaps they don’t want their full name blatantly linked to their online account. There are lots of reasons that people might want privacy. Unless your life is at risk, I would not assume that you have privacy from a journalist who isn’t a personal friend unless they have an explicit commitment. I trust journalists who are also community members to not take harmful advantage of access.
Something that is sometimes not obvious to people not used to dealing with journalists is that off-the-record sometimes means “I can’t officially tell you this, so please find another source who can corroborate it”. It’s not remotely the same thing as an expectation of privacy and good sense that one would have with a friend.
It’s unfortunate if EA feels they have to block critical journalists from marquee events. Being open and transparent is a hugely valuable part of the EA movement, and even a mixed positive/negative press article is likely to be net good for the movement—especially at the moment with all the negative press going on.
If a journalist is bent on writing criticism, they may well write criticism regardless of if we let them in to an event or not. The counterfactual of not accepting them could potentially make things worse long term too, if they double down and even use the rejection as a reason to criticise more severely.
One great thing to do could be to spend a lot of time making friends with and understanding journalists at the event. Make them feel welcome and connected to people who are there, so perhaps they will be more empathetic and fair when they write their piece?
Or am I just being naive about journalists...
This isn’t the only thing that could go wrong, but it’s a straightforward example. Perhaps they don’t want their full name blatantly linked to their online account. There are lots of reasons that people might want privacy. Unless your life is at risk, I would not assume that you have privacy from a journalist who isn’t a personal friend unless they have an explicit commitment. I trust journalists who are also community members to not take harmful advantage of access.
Something that is sometimes not obvious to people not used to dealing with journalists is that off-the-record sometimes means “I can’t officially tell you this, so please find another source who can corroborate it”. It’s not remotely the same thing as an expectation of privacy and good sense that one would have with a friend.