First Target, now Mark Cuban. In the case of Target, they pleaded not enough resources to be able to deal with bloggers, and have since changed their tune. In the case of Cuban, he also has a resource problem -- not enough space in the locker room. But instead of dealing with the situation in a rational manner, he makes a bunch of pretty arbitrary statements, to whit (bold mine):
Not because I don't want this blogger in the locker room doing interviews. What I didn't like was that the Morning News was getting a competitive advantage simply because they were the Dallas Morning News. I am of the opinion that a blogger for one of the local newspapers is no better or worse than the blogger from the local high school, from the local huge Mavs fan, from an out of town blogger. I want to treat them all the same.
Unfortunately, there isn't enough room to allow any and all bloggers in the locker room. There also are no standards that I have been able to come up with that differentiate between bloggers to the point where I should or should not credential one versus the other. My experience in reading blogs has favored bloggers not affiliated with major media companies, but that could be my unique bias.
After a digression to discuss the relative value of news media blogging (low, in mark's view), the accuracy of the media (low again), Mark sets up his general guidelines, such as they are:
Where there is physical room to fairly credential any and all bloggers, Mr MacMahon is welcome. Where we can not accomodate all bloggers, he will be excluded.
So post my little newspaper rant, it comes down to something very simple. A blogger is a blogger is a blogger and there are millions of us. . The name on your check, if you get a check, is irrelevant. BlogMaverick, Belo, xyz.blogger.com, we is what we is, and as long as there is limited space in our locker room, we is going to be outside in the Press Interview room getting comments.
So.
Mark is right -- he has a resource issue and needs to make smart decisions about how to allocate that resource -- in this case, space. He's also right in that the addition of a blogger from the local newspaper who is already getting four spots in that space is not a good decision. So he's got the right outcome -- out with the blogger from the Dallas Morning News.
But Mark is totally 100 percent wrong in saying that all bloggers are the same, or that he should/must treat all bloggers the same way and all media the same way. It's all about audience and impact. He and his communications team probably have a pretty good understanding of their fan base and how those fans get information about the Mavs. The people that reach that audience most effectively need to be at the front of the line when resource calls are made -- and it doesn't matter if they blog for the high school paper or write for ESPN. The person that reaches the audience wins. It's not complicated.
And Mark is not the first person to deal with this kind of challenge. Look at political campaigns who only have so many seats on a bus/plane. Look at press events where there are limited numbers of seats. Look at how companies make decisions on executive interviews -- an exercise in resource allocation in the very simplest terms. And those decisions start and end by understanding the audience and how best to reach them.
Mark should remember the great words of George Orwell (All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others) and give up on the "treat them the same" idea.