IDG’s media restrictions for MWSF are gonna hurt (me and you)
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Nov 17, 2005 at 2:16am
Forgive me if today’s tirade seems like a petty, personal problem. On one hand, it is. On the other hand, however, it will affect all readers of Macsimum News—at least in regards to this site’s coverage of January’s Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco. You see the show’s organizers at IDG are only allowing one press pass per publication this year. And that’s ridiculous.
I’ve been covering the San Francisco show for a decade or so. It’s my busiest week of the year, no doubt. Between press conferences, appointments, interviews, writing and posting articles, I work 12-18 hour days. Some days I literally have interviews lined up every 30 minutes so I can offer the most through press coverage possible.
For the past couple of years my wife Laura has accompanied and helped me, taking photos and making interviews/press conferences when I was running late or overbooked (which is pretty much every day at MWSF). This year she’ll be able to help me from the exhibit hall only—Laura won’t be attending any events with a press pass because only Yours Truly will have one.
Macsimum News will still bring you the best coverage, but it will be extra hard on Ye Publisher/Editor, no thanks to the folks at IDG. I realize that press passes (which are given to media reps free) are in high demand. But one per publication? Macworld Boston is dead, folks, and the company behind the San Francisco event aren’t doing the San Francisco event any favors by crippling press coverage. Two folks can’t cover all the aspects of the show without exhausting themselves. For one, it’s near impossible (but, hey, sleep is for sissies). And am I to believe that all publications will be limited to one pass? Yeah, right.
My friend and compadre, Tim Robertson of MyMac also has some excellent points on the decision in his must-read editorial. He says that the media restrictive policy is a result of the resurgence of the popularity of both the Mac and iPod brands, as well as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) moving up a week. More news organizations want to cover the event this year than ever before, and that’s the problem, Tim says.
“From the standpoint of IDG, Mac and iPod buyers, and the vendors who display and market their new products at Macworld Expo, I believe the answer is no, this is not a good solution any way you look at it,” he writes. “Some of the problems are self-inflicted on IDG’s part. As IDG PR Manager Mike Sponseller admitted, last year they gave out many press passes to those who, really, are not deserving of the name or title. Just because Joe Macuser has a website where he posts tidbits about Apple, that does not make him a qualified journalist or news organization. Much more stringent controls need to be in place at IDG to limit who is legitimate news sources. This should be done without too heavy a hand, however, but it needs to be done nonetheless.”
To which I can only add “Amen!”
MWSF 2006 will be held Jan. 9-13, 2006 at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. I’m lining up interviews now, so contact me if you’d like to meet. And for those companies (and you know who you are) that wait until Jan. 8 to say, “Have you got time to meet with us?,” the answer this year, especially, is “no.” It’s going to be first-come, first-served.
Thoughts? Write me at dsellers@macsimumnews.com
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
