That brought a charge of bias from blogger Michael Brodkorb (who has worked for GOP candidates and is reportedly weighing a run for a top party office). And so an online battle was waged today, a sideshow to the recount drama or perhaps a warm-up for tonight’s big rematch between Franken and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman on Political Championship Wrestling.

UPDATE: Braublog has this statement from the Franken folks: “Media is welcome to broadcast or stream live outside Franken for Senate headquarters, but in an effort to preserve the operational integrity of our workplace, footage inside Franken for Senate headquarters is generally not available for live streaming or live broadcast. Exceptions will be considered and granted at the discretion of the campaign.”

Here’s a play-by-play of events over the last two days in the words of the players themselves, mostly from the recount liveblog at The Uptake unless otherwise noted.

MONDAY

12:34 Mike McIntee: We will have a video from the Franken presser up soon

12:50 Jason Barnett: We are playing back a news conference that happened about 40 minutes ago at Franken Campaign Headquarters-

TUESDAY

10:12 Mike McIntee: Chuck Olsen will be covering the presser at 11:30am today. The reason given for not live streaming is they believe the Coleman campaign watches it and then tailors it’s news conference to respond to what the Franken campaign says. I think it’s a silly restriction, but since it is being applied to all media, we’re abiding. Checking on the Monday press conference. We had technical problems so it may not be up in You Tube or Blip yet.

10:21 Mike McIntee: While we find the restriction silly, the Coleman Campaign’s refusal to even let us in the building to cover its news conference is terribly disturbing.

11:07 Noah Kunin: The Coleman Campaign has never formally explained why we are banned from campaign press conferences, nor formally explained why their campaign does not answer our questions during press conferences at the Capitol (despite repeated requests for an explanation)

11:09 Noah Kunin: Coleman’s campaign has allowed us access into official events in Coleman’s capacity as Senator on a regular basis and answers our questions during those events, even if it is the Senator himself answering those questions. In fact, during the last event, the Senator took the time to single us out for our relevant and probing questions.

11:12 Noah Kunin: Since the Senate office recogonizes us as press, why the Campaign office blackout? There are multiple reasons I think. The most important aspect of this “relationship” though is their attempt to create their own reality. By blocking reasoanble access to their campaign, they make us seem more like a DFL-only media mouthpiece, which in turn then becomes the unspoken basis of the original blackout, transposed into the past.

11:44 Mike McIntee: Next “big thing” today is the Franken press conference which is happening right now. We are not able to live stream today, but will have it for playback shortly after it ends.

11:44 Mike McIntee: To clarify… that’s the Franken campaign… not the candidate himself.

11:50 chuckumentary: Franken campaign says 84 votes separate them from Coleman (using FrankenMath) #mnrecount

11:51 Mike McIntee: Chuck Olsen (Chuckumentary) is at the Franken news conference. He will feed us the raw video once it is over and he can get to a place with internet connections.

11:52 chuckumentary: Franken has received rejected absentee lists (all or in part) from 66 counties, 6400 rejected ballots so far #mnrecount

11:54 chuckumentary: MPLS had a number of rejected ballots due to admin error inc. registration – SOS own database shows voter was registered #mnrecount

11:55 chuckumentary: Itasca county rejected an absentee because “we screwed up” and put in reject pile #mnrecount

11:58 theuptake: Franken campaign says 84 votes separate them from Coleman (using FrankenMath) #mnrecount

11:58 chuckumentary: Lost ballots total “in the hundreds” – visual evidence of uncounted ballot http://twitpic.com/nzfb ballot stuck in machine #mnrecount

1:42 Chuckumentary: At last, here is part 1 of Franken press conf. from today

2:19 THE UPTAKE COMPLIES WITH GAG ORDER REQUEST FROM TEAM FRANKEN
By Michael B. Brodkorb | November 25, 2008
According to public comments made today by The UpTake’s Mike McIntee, Team Franken requested that the UpTake (and actual media outlets) no longer provide live video of their press conferences. While WCCO-TV did a live shot from Team Franken’s headquarters, The UpTake complied with gag order request and didn’t provide live video of Team Franken’s 11:30 a.m. press conference. Team Franken was apparently concerned about outside groups seeing their press conference live, so The Uptake buried the live feed. No credible media outlet would accept the terms issued by Team Franken, but since The UpTake isn’t a credible media outlet, or even a media outlet, they complied. Where’s the angry video from The UpTake expressing outrage at Team Franken’s instructions? I wouldn’t expect to see any credible outrage from this so-called band of “citizen journalists.”

2:28 dbrauer: Blog fight! @mbrodkorb is all up in @theuptake’s junk: http://is.gd/901B

2:32 Chuckumentary: we’ve been Brodkorb’d!

Responses to “THE UPTAKE COMPLIES WITH GAG ORDER REQUEST FROM TEAM FRANKEN”

2:35 haha Says: Cool! So, will you take them with you to the next Norm conference? I notice they’re not putting up any Coleman tape at all.

2:36 Ralph Kramden Says: Hey Michael – can you get the Coleman campaign to allow TheUptake to have access to their pressers, if TheUptake agrees to the same restrictions?

2:37 Jeff Rosenberg Says: Hypocrisy, thy party is GOP. Let me get this straight: The UpTake isn’t allowed to broadcast video from Coleman press conferences. But you’re upset that they didn’t broadcast video from the Franken press conference. Until the Coleman campaign will allow video from their press conferences, I don’t see what your problem is.

2:46 Danno Says: Gag order? So, you’re saying that the Uptake, putting up video of the Franken press conference after the conference is over, is a gag order? So, what do you call the complete denial of entry to the Coleman headquarters? Banishment? Terrorism? 

2:59 Jason DeRusha Says: I understand that the purpose of this site is to expose the practices of Democrats, not Republicans. But in fairness, how do you not acknowledge that the Coleman campaign has refused to allow The UpTake access to its news conferences? I’d be curious why the Franken campaign wanted no live streaming… especially considering The UpTake still aired the entire thing, just on a delay.

3:01 Chuck Olsen Says: Michael, Some fact-correction for you. The UpTake, much like C-SPAN, provides live unfiltered coverage of political events in Minnesota as our resources allow, including press conferences and debates. You’ve highly praised us for providing this service in the past, face-to-face with me and on-camera. We made it clear to the Franken campaign that we would not abide by a ban on live streaming of their press conferences unless it was an across-to-board restriction applicable to all press. They issued a statement to that effect. The WCCO live shot you refer to taken *outside* Franken HQ as you see here:
http://wcco.com/election/missing.ballots.found.2.873776.html
The UpTake is free to do the same thing, but it has little value. Instead, we live-twitter from the press conference and are the first to get that information to the public. In the case of Coleman’s campaign, we and MN Independent are being singled out while other press and citizen journalists like yourself are allowed to cover the event. This is a disservice to Minnesota, and unethical. We’d love to provide live unfiltered coverage of Coleman press conferences, or even taped unfiltered coverage. I’m disappointed at the way you’ve characterized this and it seems to go against what you’ve said in the past.

2:42 Mike McIntee: And Mr. Brodkorb, as usual, reports facts selectively, without making any phone calls to confirm anything and apparently doesn’t know the difference between a “live shot” in a newscast vs. a continuous live feed. We’ll chairitably chalk this up to his non-journalism/media background. The UpTake is treating the Franken restrction on live streaming like an embargo and will choose to deal with the restrictions on a case by case basis. We’ve been told the restriction has been applied equally to all media. Knowing that the restriction would likely be in place today we diverted our live streaming card to another location.

2:48 Chuckumentary: Yes, I consider MDE a citizen journalist and should be allowed into a Franken press event. The UpTake is a non-profit journalism organization, no question we are press regardless of political views.

Update: View the video after the jump.

In a liveblog related to the Coleman/Al Franken recount, The UpTake’s Michael McIntee writes of today’s Coleman press conference:

Tom Elko was our reporter. He says he asked nicely several times and was not admitted. He says he finally turned on his camera and started asking the Coleman campaign why only certain members of the press were being admitted to what the campaign called a “press conference”.  Tom will have a video report on that later today.

On two previous occasions, the campaign has barred entry for the organization, at a late-campaign event with Coleman and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and at an Oct. 9 “media availability.”  The Minnesota Independent, an online-only, nonprofit, perspective-based news outlet, was also denied entry, yet left-leaning Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman was welcomed in, as was Joe Kimball from MinnPost.com. Coleman staffer Tom Erickson told me the event was for “credentialed” media, but when asked how such credentials could be obtained, he said the event was for “legitimate” press. (Neither Coleman nor his staff have responded to my Oct. 19 email asking for details on their credentialing process.)

Related: How Coleman defines “legitimate” media: Minnesota Democrats Exposed

Asked about independent media being kicked out of today’s press conference, he said, “It’s interesting that politicians and public officials may resent these citizen journalists and self-described journalists. … I don’t really get the distinction that was being made, except that politicians on the defensive in a time of crisis like this may just want to make it as simple as possible and cut out the people they feel are ‘partisan.’ But that’s a two-edged sword because a lot of the politicians and public officials may have their own partisan citizen journalists and bloggers who are taking their side. … I guess once you do that, then it’s fair game.”