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UPDATE: New SEC credential policy

The Southeastern Conference, upon the urging of ASNE, APME and APSE, has significantly revised its sports credential policy in several areas.

Dear ASNE member:

The Southeastern Conference, upon the urging of ASNE, the Associated Press Managing Editors and the Associate Press Sports Editors, has significantly revised its sports credential policy in several areas. It will now be up to individual members to decide if the changes are enough to warrant the signing of the credential.

Representatives of the SEC, including Commissioner Mike Slive, held several calls this week with representatives of the media organizations in the hopes of meeting our needs.

Progress was made in:

  • Allowing photo galleries.
  • Re-use of photographs in books.
  • The ability to resell “bearer generated images” in noncommercial ways.
  • Allowing nongame action audio and video (e.g. interviews, stand-ups) to be shot and distributed in all media without restriction.
  • No archival restriction on our own work.
  • Clarification of blogging rules that do not put a limit on anything but play-by-play.
  • Clarification of third-party sharing of news coverage.

There was little to no movement in the areas of:

  • Archiving game highlights on nonsimulcast news shows.
  • Shooting and posting of “in-game” video.

There are still issues where the SEC and the media groups do not agree. The SEC is going to take its existing Media Committee and ask the national media organizations if they would like to have members on the committee to continue discussions about credential issues.

In addition, as an “olive branch” in regard to game highlights on the Web, the SEC plans to create a widget that will allow media sites to post video highlights provided by the SEC.

In an effort to be of further help to you in these matters, ASNE legal counsel, Kevin M. Goldberg, has compiled a list of recurring issues that occur in sports credentials. Reviewing this list should assist you in identifying troublesome provisions when you are presented with new credentials to cover a league or team. Please do not hesitate to contact us contact ASNE if you need more information.

Andy Alexander
Tim Franklin
ASNE FOI Co-chairs

Attachment
SEC Credential Policy Aug. 27

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