So what's it gonna be once and for all -- should we treat bloggers as citizens or as journalists? The debate rages on over at Buckeye State Blog, where a blogger named Jerid posted about being blocked out of one of Barack Obama's "Faith, Action, Change" forums at Keene State College in New Hampshire.

According to Jerid, the forums are free and open to the public, yet when he arrived and introduced himself as a blogger, he was told that the event was closed to the press.

Walking into a small room, Nicole Derse from the political desk of the Obama NH campaign was busy meeting folks. As she turned to me she started to say hello, so I replied with a smile, "Hi, my names Jerid. I'm a blogger."



"Oooooooh, I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave," she shot back. "These events are closed to the press."

Apparently that didn't matter. It was of no consequence that I'm a Democratically slanted activist who's trying to learn as much about all of the candidates in New Hampshire as I can. It didn't matter that I phonebank and canvas for candidates I support. I didn't matter that I put my "super friendly blogger hat" on when I go to these events and am respectful of folks privacy, taking great care with what I write about. All she saw was the press.

But there's a problem here: as one commenter called "RMC2000" wrote in response to the post,

"isn't this just the same age-old blog question: am i a journalist or am i an activist? you get pissed off when you're not treated like respected journalists, and then you get equally as pissed off when you actually are treated like the press. you can't have it both ways, and it confuses me as to why you think you can."

This certainly isn't a black and white issue -- bloggers occupy a unique space between citizen and journalist, and many if not most are explicitly partisan -- but bloggers have long lobbied to be treated as press, and in 2004 it was a significant breakthrough for bloggers to receive press passes for the presidential conventions. So now that they're beginning to get the respect they deserve, should they still be treated as citizens when attending party or candidate events, or should they be held to the standard to which we hold all journalists, or another blogger-only standard?