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Re: peering wars revisited? PSI vs Exodus

  • From: Shawn McMahon
  • Date: Wed Apr 05 10:13:09 2000

At 01:11 AM 4/5/2000 -0400, you wrote:

the Internet?  I don't think they tattoo 'Journalist' on your head
when you get licenced, and I'd not trust a JPEG of a picture - it's
too easy to fake with Photoshop. ;)
You don't get licensed.

Some folks mistake a "Press Pass" for a license, but here's how you get a press pass:

Somebody prints it and puts your name and, possibly, picture on it.

Sometimes; when I was in radio, our press passes didn't even have names. We just gave 'em to any of our journalists who needed them for a specific event. Carried one a few times myself. They were professionally printed with our logo, via a commercial printer who wasn't producing anything that couldn't be done just as well on an HP Color Laserjet. Some places printed theirs on cheap inkjets.

A journalist is anybody who writes news stories.

All of the above applies to the USA only. I can't speak for other countries that may have funky methods of generating extra tax income by requiring some kind of bizarre license to practice what is, in the US, guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.


One judges a journalist by his writings. All the pass does for you is show you that somebody else has judged him by his writings.

Hell, Universal Life Church will sell you a press pass for $5.

It's not a magic ticket or anything; a press pass gets you into events because the sponsoring organization of the event recognizes the credentials of the organization that issued the pass. Nothing more.

Often, the press pass gets you into events because the guy at the door doesn't know any better than to accept it.