Minnesota Independent » Tom Elko

Troopers sicced on reporter for taking photos at House committee

Chris Steller — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:29:34 +0000

Within hours of a Monday meeting at the state Capitol at which reporters heard that proposed restrictions on media wouldn’t go into force, state troopers descended on a reporter for taking a photo of a legislator who was offering a bill to a state House of Representatives committee.

Among other issues voiced at the meeting, reporters objected to a new requirement that media carry credentials for covering House committee hearings. (“What the hell are ‘committee credentials’?” DFL Caucus communications chief Andrew Wittenborg was asked.) That was apparently the problem at a committee meeting Monday evening.

Don Davis, Capitol bureau chief for Forum Communications, tells his story at the Capitol Chatter blog:

Two hours after Wittenborg’s meeting, I was trying to take a photo of Rep. Paul Marquart of Dilworth presenting a bill to a House committee. A page approached and asked to see my credentials before she would allow me to take photos. Recalling Wittenborg’s assurances that no credentials were needed, I told her that I had just been told I did not need to present credentials (which, by the way, hung in plain sight from a lanyard around my neck) and I continued to photograph Marquart.

Soon after I returned to my seat in the back of the room, two state troopers approached me after the page had called them, apparently to kick out this photographer. Both had seen me plenty of times and knew I was legitimate, so gave me little hassle.

Not long after I returned to the office to write my story, House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher called to apologize for the incident and promised it would be investigated. And Marquart called to apologize, even though he did not even know the troopers were talking to me at the time and had no knowledge of the proposed rule changes until I told him.

Davis’ account recalls an incident last week, when a House page admonished The UpTake’s Tom Elko for using a video camera in a House subcommittee meeting. Elko, who carried state Senate but not House credentials, told the Minnesota Independent he went willingly with the page to the Sergeant-at-Arms’ office to discuss the matter.

For third time, Sen. Coleman denies press from “press conference”

Paul Schmelzer — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:49:44 +0000

This afternoon, videographer Chuck Olsen of The UpTake held a “press event” (pictured above) in response to another refusal by Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign to allow an UpTake reporter into a public campaign event. This is the third time this fall Coleman’s campaign has barred entry to an official event without explanation.

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.)

Media Monitor: Of flags, sex and ballast water

Paul Schmelzer — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:34:01 +0000

A day late on inconsequential news: When MinMon’s Tom Elko blogged about Tim Pawlenty’s joke on WCCO about not gettin’ any, it took off: Wonkette linked us up and off it went: it seems everybody covered it, from CBS to the Guardian to Huffington Post. So, funny to read that Vita.mn sex columnist Alexis McKinnis, presumably up on all things sex-y, heard about it from Fox Twin Cities a few days later — not from her own paper — and wrote that “only Fox News seems to care.” While the story was good for traffic, Elko muses, “How come this never happens when I write about ballast water?”

Strib speech bubbles: The Star Tribune’s new “featured comment” function — selected comments appear within a speech bubble beside stories (cool!) — makes for good fun. Here’s a curious comment attached to the Strib’s story on this week’s RNC fashion show. Of a star-spangled toddler (above), a reader asks, “If the kid soils himself while wearing that outfit, is it flag desecration?” [A proposal: Let's start tagging such images strib + "featured comment" so they're easier to find on Flickr.]

MNspeak-dot-something: On Twitter recently, I wondered why when one types just “mnspeak” (no .com) in the Firefox address field it takes me to MNspeak creator and former owner Rex Sorgatz’s site. PiPress tech blogger Julio Ojeda-Zapata has the answer.

MinMon at DNC: The Democratic National Convention just released its list of credentialed state-based bloggers. Of more than 400 applications, Minnesota Monitor was selected to represent the state. A “general blogger pool” will be announced soon.