How powerful have blogs become? It seems that they have gained so much influence that they have been banned from the some of the locker rooms of the National Basketball Association.
The Society of Professional Journalists complained to NBA Commissioner David Stern last week after the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mike Cuban, created a policy that officially bans all bloggers from the locker rooms where journalists have traditionally been allowed to gather to cover the sports beat. The reasoning behind this new policy is that there is a space concern, meaning that all journalists would not have the room they needed to cover the NBA "fairly".
With fairness as a defense, it is interesting that the only blogger to be specifically removed from the locker room was Dallas Morning News blogger Tim MacMahon. It was also noted that MacMahon had, incidentally, written an unflattering story about Maverick's coach, Avery Johnson. While all of the official newspaper and broadcast writers were allowed to stay, it makes one wonder if bloggers, despite their influence, are truly respected in the news industry.
Though many breaking stories in recent years have been released by bloggers, their position as legitimate news gatherers seems to be questioned by the creators and consumers of news, or in this case, the news subjects. While it is true that anyone these days can have access to a blog, (as shown here) this should not determine who can and cannot have access to the information that creates news. Blogs are certainly not the oldest and most respected of media forms, but they have proven themselves again and again as a way to reveal the truth more quickly and to a wider audience. To discount the bloggers becomes an ethical issue of who the "real" news gatherers are, and who has the right to say who is legitimate or not. Finally, to specifically move a journalist of any medium, as Mike Cuban did, not only raises the suspicions of the concerned public, but also goes against our vital sense of freedom of speech and information.
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