CorpComms Magazine

Wandering around Washington DC's Newseum, the newly opened 250,000 square foot museum dedicated to the role of the media on Pennsylvania Avenue, you come across a big exhibit about the freedom of the press. As it's enshrined in the country's first amendment, it's a pretty big deal in this town.

Of course, press freedom doesn't mean unfettered access, or at least not according to one of the blokes attempting to take over the White House at the end of the street. To cover Barack Obama's election night party in Grant Park in downtown Chicago tomorrow, news organisations will have to pay $1,870 (£1,153) for space on a covered platform with phone and internet service. A seat in a heated press filing centre with power, cable TV, internet and food will set you back $935.

There is a free press area, but that is outdoors with no seating or services and it 'may have obstructed views'. So that's for standing outside on your own with no power in freezing cold darkness (this is Chicago in November, after all), potentially behind a tree.

Journalists are used to paying travel and internet expenses when covering presidential campaigns, but this sort of graded cost structure, 'smells a lot like paying for access', according to Al Tompkins, who teaches journalism at the Poynter Institute in Florida.

Imagine if this took off in the corporate world and it was free to stand in the corridor outside a press conference, but $935 if you wanted your very own chair inside. Or if you had to pay for the meeting room in a company's office to catch up with a source. It was upsetting enough when companies started banning coffee and biscuits in meetings with journalists to save cash, but we all eventually got over it. Light bulbs and heat, though, are handy. And a chair is really nice.

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