
M van den Broeke on Twitter asked this question,
Should serious EU bloggers get some sort of accreditation to EU institutions? But on what criteria?
Firstly I say fair play to her for bringing up the question. Its one that should be asked more, and not just by the EU. I must say Irish political parties have been good at facilitating bloggers, so maybe other institutions should start soon?
But back to the question at hand. As pointed out by Charlemange of the Economist and Jean Quatremer of Liberation (French) the press corp in Brussels is shrinking. There are now only 752 journalists with accreditation compared with 1,300 back in 2005.
Newspapers depend more now on wire-content for EU stories and they consistently make mistakes ( eg, Saying the ECHR is part of the EU!!!) Can bloggers bridge the gap?
Much of the original content about the EU is now written by bloggers. Simply because there is not enough journalists to cover everything the EU does. But of course bloggers have a number of hold backs, day jobs, time, and money. But some bloggers are excellent specialists at subjects and having accreditation may allow them to build on their expertise and get more informed stories out there.
But how do you define a serious EU Blogger?
- Is it someone who only follows EU Politics?
- Is it someone who the majority of their content is about the EU?
- Is it someone who knows a lot about the EU?
- Is it someone who lives in Brussels?
- Should be limited to someone with a high number of visits?
That is the hard part of deciding whether of not bloggers should be accredited.
Personally I think they should be. But who should be left into the Brussels bubble is the question?
Should a separate list be maintained for those bloggers outside of Brussels?
Its time we had this conversation.
What do you think?
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- My vision of journalism in Brussels (julienfrisch.blogspot.com)
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Hattip to Julien Frisch for the topic