Barred from BIO

The New Biology Economy won't be a credentialed member of the working press at the BIO conference to be held in Philadelphia June 19-22.

With today as the deadline for registration, NBE, for the first time in at least five years, attempted to meet a conference organizer's deadline and requirements for hands-on blessings.

We went to the website and filled out the forms and applied for credentials. Usually, this reporter just shows up at an event, flashes a business card and gets in. But, as an independent journalist with a startup site, no dice.

We received a reply from BIO so fast it must have been automated:

"We regret to inform you that your request for media registration for the BIO 2005 Annual International Convention, June 19–22 in Philadelphia, PA., has been denied based on the information you provided. "

The note said we would be welcome to ante up at the door and attend if we wanted to. The note did provide the e-mail address of Erin Reese, BIO's communications coordinator.

We wrote Erin:

Dear Erin,
I am writing to see if it would be possible to arrange credentials to
cover the BIO conference. I applied through the website and was
rejected, so I am appealing to you.

I have covered the biotech world for the past three years as an editor
at -----. I am no longer with that organization and have begun a
new enterprise covering the emerging systems biology and integrated
biology market. Initially, the vehicle I will use for disseminating my
journalism is a blog that is in startup mode.

I plan to launch at BIO. My blog is functional at this point, but it
not available for general public viewing. I can, however, point you a
site that is serving as my beta prior to launch.

Erin, I'm sure this is a first for BIO, but it is not a first in
journalism. Last summer, both the Republican and Democratic
conventions credentialed bloggers. If you do a Goggle check on me, you
can see I have a long track record as a traditional journalist. Now,
I'm taking a different vehicle to do my reporting, but would like to
assure you that fairness, accuracy, objectivity, transparency, and
responsibility are of the utmost importance to me and to my chances
for success in this new medium.

I look forward to hearing a reply from you.

Most sincerely,
Editor, New Biology Economy

Erin replied quickly:

I understand where you're coming from, but at least for this year we
made the decision not to accept blogs as valid publications. We realize
that it is an up and coming mode of communication, and it is something
that we will be discussing further for upcoming meetings, however, at
this point we cannot make any exceptions.
Thanks,

We responded:

Thank you for your quick reply. Naturally, I'm disappointed. But, may
I surmise that you have had other blog coverage inquiries? That is
interesting -- but not at all surprising.

Again, thank you for your consideration.

There was no response.

So, NBE won't be sporting the lovely media bags with the BIO logo on them; we won't be lining up to snarf up media buffets and sound bytes provided by corporate communications folks. But, we will be in Philly. Likely standing outside the convention center and doing interviews with whomever we can buttonhole to talk about the new biology economy. And, we will be publishing, if we can find an available computer.

That's old-fashioned journalism. Close the front door, we'll go in the side, or we'll stand outside.