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MnIndy video: Coleman’s staff ejects reporter from press conference

Chris Steller — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:07:55 +0000

U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign staff ejected a Minnesota Independent reporter (that would be me) from a press conference at campaign headquarters Wednesday afternoon. I made it as far as the inside of a small press conference room at a drab office park in St. Paul where I was just about to settle into the chair that seemed least conveniently located to the exit when a staffer asked who I was with. When I said the Minnesota Independent, he said I’d have to leave. To my protest that MnIndy is a news outlet like others represented there, the staffer replied, “Right, and it’s funded by George Soros,” and he escorted me out. It’s the fourth time local independent media have been denied access to the senator’s media availability. Video (think Blair Witch Project in the most boring office interior on Earth) after the jump. Spoiler alert: Norm’s door is extremely squeaky.

MnIndy Video: Independent media ‘not welcome’ at Coleman ‘media availability’

Paul Schmelzer — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:03:47 +0000

An Oct. 9 press release from campaign staffer Tom Erickson said that Sen. Norm Coleman would “hold a media availability” Friday morning. But when I arrived, Chuck Olsen of the citizen-videoblogging group The Uptake had already been refused entry. When I tried to walk in, Erickson barred me entry as well, stating that the event, held in Coleman’s campaign office, was for “credentialed” media only. When I asked how one gets such credentials, he said that only “legitimate” media were welcome. As journalists from local media filed past — Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman, MinnPost reporter Joe Kimball, TPT host Eric Eskola — Coleman staffers refused to share what criteria is used to determine what makes a news operation legit.

Watch Olsen’s video of the incident here. Larger video here.