Today Stephen Taylor raised a minor ruckus on Twitter about the Liberal Party of Canada's policy on who is able to attend the biennial convention free of charge. In past conventions (2006, 2008 and Canada @ 150), bloggers were able to seek accreditation as media and avoid paying any fees. At the upcoming convention, unless a blogger is sponsored by a media organization, the only way he or she can attend the convention is as an observer ($1,100) or as a delegate (fees vary from $200 to $675). Jeff Jedras has a blog post on the issue that provides a lot of useful background.
While I wouldn't have made this change in policy myself, I think it's fine. And I think people are overreacting to a change to the status quo.
First of all, in practice this policy affects very few people: in past conventions, maybe a dozen or so bloggers have been accredited as media. Of those, a bunch are probably already attending this convention as delegates. So we are literally talking about a handful of people.
Second, blogging is a lot less important now than it was 2.5 years ago. Unlike in previous conventions (2006, 2008) there will likely be at least one hundred people tweeting from the convention floor directly and posting on Facebook. Maybe several hundred. Plus all of the journalists who are now using twitter extensively. Keep in mind that in January 2008 there were eight employees at Twitter; now there are 400 employees. More than 1 billion tweets are posted per week and there are 400 million+ accounts (up from 30 million in early 2009). There will be no shortage of as-it-happens news reported from the convention.
Is there value in having bloggers like Stephen Taylor at the convention? Sure. Is it a really important issue? No.
Think of it this way: if you were to choose a group of people to attend the Liberal Party convention free of charge, would bloggers be at the top of your list? Personally, I'd rather have some non-partisan policy experts who could provide useful insight on policy.
