I am attending the RSA conference in February as press because of my Computerworld blog. I applied at the RSA Conference site, and they accepted me. And like Martin has been posting, I have been getting multiple requests for interviews, breifings, etc. from security companies that are attending.
Well, today I received an email from a public relations firm that did not tell me who they represented. Here’s the text of the email:
Hi Michael,
I saw that you were attending RSA on behalf of Computerworld. I’m just curious – are you attending for content for your blog postings or are you acting in more of a reporter capacity for Computerworld at the conference and planning to write on hard news and discussions with folks who have a presence and activity at the conference?
I don’t know about you, but I was offended by this question. So, because I blog I am not legitimate? Here is my response:
It is for my CW blog and my personal security blog.
And though I may just be feeling defensive, and I also suspect you are not being purposefully belittling, many bloggers would take issue with the tone of your question. Blogging is a completely legitimate news source and is considered by many to be “hard newsâ€. I think this is proved out by RSA accepting so many bloggers as press. And “discussions with folks who have a presence and activity at the conference†are excellent sources for blog posts. In fact, I am interviewing a couple of people for my blog, and these people are security professionals and security industry executive types.
Just because bloggers post their opinions (because we both know “hard news†reporters never report their opinion, right?) does not mean we are not a valid news source.
Any body else take this as I did? Am I being too defensive?
Vet
