To paraphrase a popular magazine feature: What’s in? Fashion Blogs. What’s out? Fashion magazines. Sorry but it’s true. Blogs are more relevant and current than any mainstream press. It would not be very difficult to determine which bloggers are deserving of press credentials. Wise promoters should set aside passes for the enthusiastic and hard-working bloggers!

Haute.Lanta Fashion Week certainly recognizes the ability and CREDIBILITY of Fashion bloggers and would like to offer a personal invitation for you to join the largest fashion event ever seen in the South East!

Please have a look at the site and feel free to email us with your information so that we can get an official press packet (including an all access pass) for HLFW out to you!

Ciao for now,
The Fabulous Nikki Walker
http://www.hautelantafashionweek.com

Here are a few of the reasons that bloggers get rejected for media credentials:

1. The powers that be are afraid of what bloggers will say. Few of us have editors. We have no journalistic standards or rules. We are not beholden to anyone for access, nor do we get special privileges. People fear the unfamiliar and what feel they have less control over. They are afraid we will be snarky or irresponsible, though I think there is plenty of snark and irresponsibility in print.

2. If anyone with a blog can get media access, then they have to give out media passes willy nilly. Given the explosion of blogs over the past couple of years, they don’t want to give out a zillion credentials.

3. The mainstream media wants to maintain their monopoly on information. They want to pretend as though their professional distance and journalistic standards make them more equiped to give their opinions than we are. Who is going to advocate for bloggers to get media credentials–certainly not the media? Credentialling maintains information monopolies, and those monopolies mean that MSM journalists get paid for what they do, and people who want information have to go through them as a gate keeper.

Typically, those events and organizations that don’t need publicity as much are fussier about credentials than those who don’t. So, the NFL is pretty bad about credentialling because they are popular, but at least one forward looking team in the NHL has credentialled bloggers in the last couple of years. They worked with bloggers to come up with an appropriate criteria for blogger credentialling:

http://www.ericmcerlain.com/offwingopinion/archives/006593.php#006593

So, I can’t get credentials for various NFL events, even if I have written more about the team I cover than anyone in the MSM, but when I covered Super Bowl parties in Miami, I got all sorts of crazy credentials because party planners wanted the publicity.

This is an issue that all bloggers should fight for because otherwise it won’t get any better. Doing what the NHL blogger did and try to help organization planners create blogging policies can help. It can also help to make friends with people in the MSM that can advocate on your behalf in case by case situations. Or making contacts over time with PR folks for events–that over time, you send them posts relevant to what they do, and eventually they start seeing you as someone more familiar. It’s about creating a win-win environment. It’s too bad that the SF Fashion Week people are being so short-sighted.

Good luck with this. Hopefully, they will change their mind.

-Steph
Loves the fashion and the football

thank you so much for posting about this. i am truly honored and a bit giddy that you have written the words you have about my little blog. thank you.

as for sf fashion week… i think you have hit the nail on the head with that one… oh dear, where are their heads?

i’ve also finally posted my response to them… argh! i need to stop typing.

xox
jennine