Almost 15 years in broadcasting and I'm treated like I have no idea what I'm doing. I should just let this go, but I have been trying to get media passes for the last 3 NASA launch events now, and each time we're denied. This is a snippet of our latest denial letter:
"Requests from online orgs must be from a previously established, independent site that contains regularly updated original news content above & beyond links, forums, troubleshooting tips and reader contributors; a readership of more than 1,000 per month, and has covered the space industry before. Fan sites, Web logs and personal web sites do not qualify for media badges. Links to two bylined articles clearly displaying publication title published within the past six months AND EITHER a copy of your current masthead or business card with name, title and media outlet's logo OR a copy of your online pubs home page and the masthead page with your name and title appearing in an editorial capacity OR an official letter of assignment from your media outlet. The web material must go through an independent editor before publication. In other words, you're not media if you're independently writing and editing your own material. That is what defines a blogger"
I won't go in to how ***THIS*** is a blog and Spacevidcast isn't. Fine. I won't go into what defines a blog because clearly NASA has their mind made up there. No, let me go in to where people get their news from now.
Traditional television is dying. People don't go to CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS, etc., etc. to get their information all that much anymore. They go online. If you want information on space you go to
SpaceflightNow.com,
NASASpaceFlight.com and yes
Spacevidcast.com. In fact over 3,000 people get their dose of Spacevidcast
every... single... day...
It's not that NASA isn't trying, they really are. In fact STS-129 saw their first ever space shuttle
TweetUp at KSC which looked to be an awesome event. We would have gone, but unlike media the Twitter users didn't have access to the HD video feed, so I would have been SOL if I wanted to bring the world awesome coverage. NASA allowed 100 twitter users to come in and get a personal tour of the launch itself. Very awesome and I really do think they should get kudos for that.
However, it is just a start.
Maybe NASA thinks that all they need to do is allow 100 people in each time for a total of 500 more Twitter users until the end of the shuttle program. Maybe NASA wants to control the information flow and they are simply not used to the new media instant access. Or maybe NASA thinks that Spacevidcast getting a press pass would create a rip in the space time continuum to the peril of all humanity. No idea. I can say that 100 twitter users isn't enough. Great start, but now lets start to take notice that sites like Spacevidcast don't fit in to NASA's nifty little categories. We are something new, something different but not something less valuable. We stream to tens of thousands of people during launch events. Don't discount us because we are new, different or making change in this arena. The fact is that for STS-129 we had 73,814 people join us for the launch (based on the Ustream.tv viewer metrics). I don't know what SFN or
NASA.gov got but I would be willing to bet we held our own against both of them.
Anyhow, my rant is done. If NASA won't allow us press passes, that's fine. I don't need NASA to bring everyone amazing coverage of a shuttle launch. In fact I would say to this day we have the best launch coverage of any media outlet, online or offline. We'll have people at Space View Park, we will have moles within NASA and we'll have people at the STS-130 TweetUp if NASA decides to do that again. We don't need NASA to bring you the coverage, we're big enough now where we have people everywhere to make that happen. No, what gets me is that NASA doesn't seem to care enough to look at not just Spacevidcast but all the other people out there who could be game changers in the space industry. Hey, we don't fit in to the NASA "broadcaster" category, so what good could we ever accomplish?
Other than, you know, changing the world.
[Corrections: I have updated the time I have spent in the industry to reflect 15 years not 10 as originally posted. I just realized that I have spent nearly 15 years in broadcasting. In addition I made note that this was the for KSC TweetUp. NASA has actually had a few TweetUps before but the STS-129 TweetUp was the first at KSC and the first for a shuttle launch]
