SEC revises media credentials policy

• By SCOTT HOTARD
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Aug 28, 2009 - Page: 1C

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With countdown boards ticking ever closer to college football’s opening weekend, the Southeastern Conference made a fourth-quarter push Thursday to win the media’s acceptance of a controversial credential policy.

The league issued the latest in a line of revisions to the policy, this one billed as the final product.

The most recent adjustments come on the heels of discussions between SEC officials and representatives of The Associated Press Managing Editors, The Associated Press Sports Editors, the American Society of News Editors and the Radio-Television News Directors Association.

Last week, APME, APSE and ASNE presidents filed a joint letter of protest regarding the SEC’s guidelines.

“It was really good communication back and fourth — very constructive,” said Charles Bloom, the SEC’s associate commissioner. “The major issues were laid out early and dealt with early, where at the end we were dealing with just the interpretation of language.”

Originally released early this month, the guidelines met immediate resistance.

Bloom expressed optimism that closure is near, thanks in large part to revisions Thursday regarding the use and reselling of photographs, blogging and the use of video and audio on Web sites.

Some news organizations, however, maintain the SEC is putting too many constraints on the media and their ability to cover a league whose member institutions are predominately public.

“It still causes a lot of concern for us,” said Carl Redman, The Advocate’s executive editor. “We feel like the revisions still leave us in a position where we are giving up a large portion of our First Amendment rights and, in addition, where we would agree to severely restrict our copyright privileges in exchange for access to the games. I’m not satisfied at all. What you have is a an athletic league that is trying to undercut our constitutional protections with the threat of denying access.”

To be credentialed for any sporting event on an SEC campus, media outlets must sign off on the policy.

South Carolina opens its football season Thursday night. Because that game is at North Carolina State, media would not need to have agreed to the SEC’s guidelines to be credentialed.

The league’s other 11 teams open Labor Day weekend, with six of those teams playing home games.

“There might be someone out there who is willing to accept this policy without conditions, but I don’t know who that might be,” said Arkansas Democrat-Gazette managing editor David Bailey, who represented APME during conference calls with SEC Commissioner Mike Slive and Bloom early in the week. “We’re still planning. The one thing that we’re not considering at this point is any kind of unconditional acceptance of the conditions they’re trying to set.”