Subject: Re: About IETF communication skills

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 17:09:17 +0200

On 1 aug 2008, at 0:57, <[email-masked]>  
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> 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...

Anyway: face it, everyone, even reporters, has opinions, and everyone,  
even "technical experts" can write about the IETF.

What would the goal of accreditation be?

> 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.

>> These days, the analogous issue is whether or not
>> bloggers are "real"
>> journalists.  I would hope that most IETFers would object to
>> that distinction.

> You can't object to a technical fact. Of course then there is
> the clarity of terminology, so lets define journalist as someone
> who is paid to write articles for a publication and who is
> at IETF to do their dayjob.

A more useful distinction would be that if journalists get in for  
free, they only get to listen in meetings, not talk.

> This definition does exclude
> people like me who are not currently paid to write and who
> only write on things like blogs and mailing lists.

It doesn't exclude me, though.

>> To put it bluntly, I'm not at all in favor of trying to
>> manage news coverage, especially by organizational
>> mechanisms.

> My suggestion was not about managing new coverage at all,
> but about providing a venue for a specific section of the
> attendees that have special needs.

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.
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From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 22:33:47 +0100

> > 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.

> 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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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:12:41 -0400

I find myself imagining what IETF would be like if anyone who could 
claim to be a journalist (say because they have a blog) could get in for 
free, subject only to the condition that they could not talk during 
meeting sessions.

I think I just might claim to be a journalist (after all, I do have a 
relevant blog), show up, and try to provide useful input in the 
hallways.  The hallways have always been much more effective for that 
anyway, and the meeting sessions seem to be getting less and less useful 
over time.

Keith