eight tips for dealing with online media at fashion week:

An open note to designers and publicists during Fashion Week; I have seen so many articles about how the online media should deal with you...now it's my turn to tell you some of the things I really think would help you deal with ME, an online writer. Please don't take offense --I just think that sometimes, you forget that we have different issues than you do. Here are my top 8 tips for dealing with online media at fashion week:


1. Honor the press request I sent in a timely manner: If you want online media like me to come to your show, respond promptly to my press requests. I know you're waiting for all the mainstream media to RSVP first, but, believe it or not, I book up several weeks in advance (thank heavens people actually like me and want me to cover their shows and events)! I cover up to 8 things a day (not all in the same place) and often have to leave an hour or two in advance of a show to cover it backstage. If you tell a busy online writer like me days before an event that you haven't any room for me, or that you DO have room, it makes it impossible to plan a schedule. We do not all have assistants, and I do all my own photography and reporting. Please be considerate and let me know the situation before it's the 11th hour. I have turned down so many great things because your "A" list, (and probably B lists) didn't fill up, so you finally got down to my level. Thanks, but no thanks.


2. Don't put us in standing room. We don't have the time to wait around on long lines when we're doing a gazillion events, back to back each day. And, we cannot do any kind of adequate reporting ducking under people's armpits. We may find Fashion shows entertaining, but we're there to work and report on them. Standing room is the place for students, and those coming for purely personal and entertainment purposes. As much as I might like to see a show, I no longer attend shows in standing room if I really plan on covering it.

3. Online reporters are bona-fide reporters. Don't put bona fide reporters in the back row. We adore sitting and resting our tired legs, arms and bodies, occasionally, but if you put reporters in the back rows, we can't see or take photographs, so how are we really going to report on your show? Sometimes all I can see are heads and shoulders....how will my coverage help you if I can't see anything below the model's necks? The back row should be for your daughter's dog walker, or your sister's boyfriend, or anyone else who wants to experience the scene, but doesn't really need to see it up close and personal. We don't need to be sitting in the front row next to a star's two year old, or their friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, or those high school kids from NYC Prep, but help us do our job....give us a spot so we can SEE!

4. Thank us (or at least, acknowledge) our coverage, at least, occasionally. When I come home after a sunup to sundown day, I'm downloading photos and writing until I can't keep my eyes open. I'd like to know that it didn't go into a giangantic, black hole. At some point in the next couple of months, when it's Friday afternoon and you can't stand doing anything else, maybe take a moment to let me know you took a peek at my posts and features. That tells me you know I'm alive and you've seen my work. You don't have to do it right away, even though I generally try to send a speedy follow up email thanking YOU for the opportunity to cover the show or event, along with the urls to posts and features I wrote, but ...eventually I'd love to know what you thought of what I did. Maybe it's too much to ask, but it would be nice.

5. Fashion Week is like a wedding....it brings out the best and the worst in people. We know you have a lot of your plate, but so do we. If you can't solve a problem, get someone who can, and don't give us nasty attitude. our day is just as long and frustrating and physically, emotionally and mentally demanding as yours. Remember that like you, we have a job to do. That's why we're there (not to wear party dresses and totter around on stilettos). We can't do our jobs if we can't get in backstage (even though were confirmed and got up at the crack of dawn to be there) or we're not on the list when we have an invite right in our hands (so you send us to standing room).

6. If you really want our coverage, treat us like the professionals we are. You wouldn't treat print reporters and photographers like dirt, so don't treat online media, especially bloggers, that way either. Try to be at least a little bit friendly and kind. Online media is here to stay. In your career we will be seeing YOU again, and again, and again... and you will be seeing US. Why not make each contact, a pleasant one?

7. What part of silence don't you understand is "NO" is just plain rude. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I'm sorry....silence is rude, rude, rude. Give online media the same courtesy you would to Anna or Leon. You never know who we will be, or know, someday. In fact, some of us are pretty impressive right now--we are just quiet about it and don't wear sunglasses inside, or have an entourage and handlers, following us around.

8. High resolution photos and press releases of glittering parties or fashion shows, or events I didn't attend make me feel like the uncool kid at school. I will definitely look at what you send me, but it won't make it into my coverage. I don't believe in fake reviews when I wasn't even there! If you want me to add something to my online features or blog posts, invite me to cover the event..I will do my best to do so and do it, well.

Skanks A Lot, Liskula Cohen

This blog is called "Skanks A Lot." I created it as a reaction to the blogger who created the blog "Skanks in New York" and wrote irresponsible and defamatory things about a model, Liskula Cohen. The blogger called her a "skank" and the "#1 skanky superstar" on a blog hosted by the search engine's subsidiary, Blogger. This new blog http://skanksalot.blogspot.com/, and my very active daily blog, The Advice Sisters Guide to Life, Success & Happiness at: http://www.advicesisters.net/advicesistersblog.html are both on Blogger.

What's All the Fuss About? The point of Cohen's lawsuit is that bloggers shouldn't be sheltered when they've acted irresponsibly. Cohen wanted the right to make Blogger unmask the errant blogger's identity. Apparently by now, the model knows it was a woman--someone she already knows (could this be a publicity stunt cooked up by the two, to boost "fauxsocilte" status? But the point has been made -- have we just gone too far in spouting whatever tripe we feel with no consequences and should anyone, especially cloaked in the cape of internet anonymity, be allowed to do so?

Caveat Lector: The reason why I took the ONLY name available with "Skank" in it, that didn't include mine (as Blogger's automatic engine helpfully suggested) is that I have been online for 1 1/2 decades. I am a multi-published book and articles author, as well as being touted as half of the twin sister team (the Advice Sisters ) who brought the genre of advice and "info-tainment" to the net. I have seen many changes in the quality (and certainly the quantity) of content on the Internet since I began working on it. In the beginning, most online content was still managed by professional companies or publishers and written by seasoned, experienced writers and reporters. If they were not personally feeling the need to be honest and responsible, their companies yanked the editorial leash. But with the introduction of easier Internet access and now, free blogs for all (thanks to easy, third-party publishing software), Internet content is hideously bloated, the quality, seriously degraded. There is no assurance that what you read online is credible or even, valuable. It is now the responsibility of each reader of each piece of content, to judge it's value and question it's credibility. That's a difficult thing to do, but it is up to the reader to be wary.

Free Speech? The very thing that makes blogs amazingly wonderful (immediate access and anyone can be a writer) is also what makes it troubling. With free access to everyone and the license to blog whatever they want, should come some responsibility. When you can write anything you want --especially anonymously --without journalistic (or legal) repercussions, situations like this one with Liskula Cohen, are bound to arise. While the Skanks in New York blog seems to be a childish and stupid enterprise, to do it anonymously makes it just that more juicy. When people skewer others in a public forum, and are allowed to do so anonymously, someone is going to get hurt. It makes sense that what we wouldn't do in person and in public, we should not do online. But there are lots of people out there who seriously lack judgment. I am certain that the anonymous blogger would not have dared to write the unflattering, silly and inflammatory things she put on her blog, if she had to do it with her name and face on it, or worse, in person. I do believe in free speech, but I think if you're going to say something, you need to stand up and be identified. I also believe that if you do something wrong, you need to stand up and accept the consequences. Blogger has already pulled the anonymous blogger's blog, but doubtless she will be back, with another nasty, useless diatribe against something or someone else. There's no one to stop her. And, as long as the reading public enjoys this type of snarky garbage, more people will race to follow in AnonBlogger's footsteps.

Skanksalot Blog: I am not quite sure what I'm going to do with this blog, but I do intend to use it to write about things that bother me, since that really isn't the format of the Advice Sisters Daily Blog. Whatever you see on either Skanksalot or the Advice Sisters Blog will have my name on it, and I will do my best to write in a professional and responsible manner. Whatever her motivation, I applaud Liskula Cohen's initiative in bringing the issue of free speech vs. taking responsibility for your actions, to the general public. "Entertainment" doesn't have to mean "trash," but when it croses the line, blogger, be ready to take your lumps.

-Alison Blackman Dunham --

Do you think easy and free access to say whatever you want, however you want to do it, a good thing, or not? I'd welcome your comments.