"I was reading an interview with Ana Marie Cox, of Wonkette fame, the other day. Before losing her job with the shuttered Air America, she said she had a difficult time getting a congressional press pass because the people in Congress who dole out that special access “considered Air America to be too close to advocacy.”

She made the concurrent point that Fox News gets in, no problem, and so does The New York Post.

I’ve also faced difficulty getting a congressional press pass as a Washington staff reporter for Indian Country Today. Not because the powers that be say we’re advocacy-oriented, but because they flat out equate tribes as foreign governments and/or lobbyists. No exceptions. Because the paper I work for is owned by a company that’s owned by a tribe, somehow that means our journalism is tainted. No matter our principles, no matter our aim for truth and accuracy, no matter our awards — there’s something wrong with us.

The U.S. Senate Periodical Press Gallery says those are the rules. But what the situation really boils down to is a U.S. government bias against tribes. The same U.S. government that strives to protect the 1st Amendment; that holds freedom of the press up as an important symbol of our country’s greatness; that likes to say it has a special relationship with tribes. If special means unfair, then that’s news to me.

It’s the same U.S. government, too, that has previously approved congressional credentials for many foreign news services, including China’s Xinhua News Agency."

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Rob Capriccioso: A congressional bias against certain press (True Slant 3/1)