Am I media or not?

If you are someone who might write, record, or make images about a event, we ask you to first ask yourself, “am I media or not?” You’ll notice that events on our calendar are designated open or closed to media participation. We do this to protect the privacy of individuals who participate in these events, and to make everyone feel welcome at our events, even if someone is uncomfortable around cameras, recorders or notetakers.

For that reason, we want everyone who will be documenting an event in any way (either during the event or after the event) to consider themselves to be “media” when attending the event. We try to define our guidelines for participation to include “media and documentary participants” but often that gets shortened to just “media” so we need to be clear that if you’re writing about us, taking pictures of us, creating experimental sound recordings of us, etc… that still means you.

For the most part, we do welcome everyone’s participation, we just ask that you contact us before the event you plan to attend, to clarify what your participation will be. To do that, email us at .

If you do work with the media industry, or have a personal blog, podcast or other open forum, but you want to simply participate in one of our events out of personal interest, you are absolutely welcome to do that, whether it is considered open to media or not. We do ask, though, that you follow these guidelines.

* Don’t bring cameras, tape recorders, or other recording devices.

* Do not conduct interviews. Any discussions you have with anyone must be considered entirely personal, completely “off the record” ‚Äì not to be described or quoted at all, even anonymously.

* If you subsequently write about the experience in a blog, article, etc., do not include any proper names: neither names of people, nor locations.

* If you introduce yourself to someone you haven’t met, please disclose your media affiliation (even if it is very minimal, like a personal blog), but make it clear that you have read these guidelines and are respecting them.

* Do not contact someone you have met at an event, after the event, for an interview or other sort of media contact. (Exceptions to this are the “media contact” people designated for the organization.) If you want to arrange an interview with someone, schedule an official media visit and approach that person (if they attend).

* Do not ask for retroactive permission to describe an event that you have attended under these guidelines. If your experience motivates you to pitch or write a piece about freeganism, please contact us and schedule an official media visit according to our regular procedures.

Please understand that these guidelines rely on trust and goodwill. Also please understand that if someone finds out that you have violated this trust, the group may ask you not to participate in further events.