By ANDY WALKER | P.E.I. Diary Sun. Oct 25 – 4:46 AM – corrected version see Chronicle Herald corrects story about blogger

LIKE THEIR Canadian counterparts, P.E.I. journalists are trying to work out how to coexist with bloggers.

Modern technology gives anybody with a computer and an Internet connection access to a platform to tell their story.

Hundreds of blogs and websites that exist on the Internet practise what has often been called “citizen journalism.”

One of the most active Island bloggers is Stephen Pate.

A retired businessman, he runs an Internet site called the NJN Network, which stands for Not Just the News. Mr. Pate offers comments on the news and issues of day, often resorting to highly personal attacks on public figures and journalists.

While there has technically been a press gallery at the Prince Edward Island legislature since 1971, it just existed on paper until a month ago.

I’ve been covering the Island legislature since 1992. Back then, the atmosphere at the Island legislature could perhaps be described as informal. No media accreditation was needed to cover the House.

There wasn’t even a sign-in sheet for visitors going to the public gallery.

That all changed after a pipe bomb exploded on the legislature grounds in 1995. Security was tightened and media and legislature staff required accreditation to do their job. Those accreditations are issued by the Speaker.

Last year, Mr. Pate applied for accreditation and his request was granted.

The fall legislature session is due to start Nov. 12 and several other bloggers have followed Mr. Pate’s lead and asked for credentials. In response, Speaker Kathleen Casey asked the press gallery to become active and make a recommendation on the issue.

At the inaugural meeting on Oct. 19, Mr. Pate was elected secretary.

On Sept. 30, Mr. Pate posted a fake news release written under the banner the provincial government uses for its releases on its website. He also distributed it to a number of Island media outlets.

That led his fellow executive members to put a resolution to the general membership asking the speaker to remove his accreditation.

Mr. Pate mounted a spirited defence, claiming he was a journalist and was only practising satire. He told the meeting “journalists have been using satire and parody for thousands of years.”

He argued that he was a journalist, saying he has written over 2,900 articles over the past three years.

Press gallery members voted 11-2 to ask for his suspension and also gave the executive a mandate to develop a policy on whether bloggers are eligible for membership. No time frame was attached to the review, so it’s still unclear whether there will be any changes prior to the fall session.

As for Mr. Pate, he vows to fight on. He has written extensively about the vote on his website and even circulated a release on the issue distributed by a free service called prlog.org.

In the release, he calls the vote “a travesty of justice from so-called professional journalists.”

“A show trial in communist China could have approached the lack of due process and fairness at the P.E.I. press gallery,” Pate said in the release.

“Even in Russia, they gave people lawyers. This was like a banana republic where the government is talking to the judge throughout the trial to make sure they get a conviction.”

He indicated that the fake release “was a clever and witty satiric parody of the government’s lack of action for the disabled.”

Mr. Pate, who is disabled and confined to a wheelchair, describes himself as a disability advocate.

Press gallery president Wayne Thibodeau told the meeting he has researched the issue and he could not find any other gallery in the country that admitted bloggers.

However, following the vote to revoke Mr. Pate’s credentials, he invited another blogger, Tim Banks, to work with the executive to develop the policy on possible membership for future bloggers. Mr. Banks is a former president of the P.E.I. Liberal party, so it looks like the debate could well have another chapter.

P.E.I. Diary appears every third week in The Novascotian. ( awalker@herald.ca)

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