Answers to common questions:
Yes, these ID cards do work. To use them without being a journalist who wants to report about a specific event could be considered fraud.
The following is some general advice on how to use a press card.
1. No card, whether historical or brand new, replica or not, gives you the specific right to cadge.
2. It might help to contact the organiser of the event you want to visit a day in advance. You usually do this by a phone call. It is very likely that you will be asked to send a copy of the press ID via email or fax.
3. The organiser of the event lets you in because you want to report for a media outlet and not that you have a press ID or any other proof that you are a journalist—THIS is what you have to communicate. However, a press card helps a lot in making it plausible that you are a journalist with a mission.
4. First talk (whether that’s on the phone or in person), then show your press ID.
5. If it is an important event, let’s say a fancy rock concert: do an accreditation about six weeks in advance. Call the press manager of the organisers (do some research online to see who this is) and explain for what media you work. It’s very likely that they will ask you to submit a copy of a press ID or a letter from your editor-in-chief.
6. If this does not work, well, that’s life. Even the program directors of BBC, CNN or MTV do not have the natural right to visit every event they could imagine.
7. No, I will not write an editor’s letter that confirms that you are working for the GRASS-JOURNAL that’s based in the UK. I do not recommend false letters like that—simply because that is fraud.
If you have any further questions, please let me know.
Yours secretly,
John Tomsen
Inside Press ID
