sorry to like Write Something A Bit Serious on Tumblr but I posted about this on LinkedIn (an act of extreme last resort if there ever was one) and I think it deserves to go elsewhere.
there's a guy who's posted to LinkedIn (link for proof: x) about how the FIA have made the decision to only allow media with full-season accreditation* and some select outlets from the host country's media to attend written media post-session interviews at the European races.
there's generally more accredited media at the European rounds than others. a lot of the F1 press is based in Europe and applications are much higher for some rounds in particular, like Silverstone. a lot of people who get the accreditation are not first-timers, it's just that the European rounds are, for them, the most geographically accessible and so will be the ones cash-pressed publications or freelancers' own budgets can get them to. they may well have been doing this for many years.
there is nothing about having a full-season pass that says you're more expert or more senior or have a bigger platform than media accredited on a race-by-race basis. often, media who attend a few rounds may well have a much bigger platform - national newspapers, big but non-F1-specialist magazines and websites. many of the full-season pass holders like Joe Saward, Dieter Rencken before he became an advisor to Ben Sulayem (which, wtf), Adam Cooper, are or were accredited for their own blogs.
their coverage may reach bigger platforms eventually but in theory your accreditation is meant to be for your "main" publication. it's not technically possible to accredit yourself as a freelancer. or well, wasn't until I did it and broke the system about 10 years ago.
the point is: having a full-season pass is not something you get on a merit system. it's just for when you have attended so many races the previous year the FIA can save themselves some admin by giving you one pass not 24.
no one starts out with that pass, as a written journalist, unless you come from some very specific publications who commit to sending a full-season reporter. you have to re-apply for it every year on the basis of having attended the majority of the previous season's races.
I've separately seen the actual email from the FIA which said that all sessions would be recorded and shared on a google drive for all accredited media. but what's being missed out on is the right to ask questions.
race-by-race accreditation is difficult to get and difficult to be approved for travel for. sometimes journalists find out they've been turned down after they've had to book their flights and hotels. (this happened to me once with a longhaul that fortunately I got the decision overturned on)
in order to be accredited as media you have to go through a series of hoops: proof of coverage, letter from an editor, approval on the accreditation portal first as a valid publication then for each specific series and event. it takes weeks if not months of work - a lot of publications skip it by just going as guests of brands, which gives them much more limited access to ask questions and a lot more helicopters and complimentary cocktails.
once you've done all that you should be allowed access to ask questions when it counts, which is immediately after a session when there's stuff for them to actually react to rather than either re-hashing the previous race in the Thursday sessions or bland quotes looking forward to the weekend.
it's hard to convince editors it's worth you being on the ground. just watch it on TV, just use the Sky quotes, find stuff online. the purpose of it is so that you can ask questions and get access to more things.
devaluing that will just discourage anyone getting sent at all. you can't replace the coverage from distinct outlets by just assuming the ✨big guys✨ will share their quotes. a lot of them either don't ask any questions (there's at least five guys with full-season passes this is true of - I used to transcribe every session and it's noticeable who does and doesn't ask anything) or frankly ask agenda-based garbage that's of no wide use. they often rely on a tiny handful of people to actually ask sensible questions.
why should some geezer who writes for his own blog get more access to ask about what happened in a race than, I don't know, someone from Teen Vogue just because they don't have a full-season, dedicated F1 reporter? you can't just say he's going to fill the same role and supply the same material, clearly. these guys do not have any reach to a lot of publications that are now regularly writing about Formula 1.
as a sidenote, I do not know the man who wrote the original post. but I have heard reports from multiple people that he exhibits predatory behaviour to women in the paddock. he is, obviously, far from the only full-season pass holder that can be said of. and that's who gets special access? that's genuinely disgusting.
the FIA says it's overcrowding concerns. ok, yes, I imagine some drivers are incredibly popular - maybe use a sign-up basis for those sessions. but there'll be others where media is barely in attendance and there's no reason a handful of full-season-pass holders should be the only ones at any of them.
it is not right for the FIA to both shore up a (to my knowledge) currently exclusively male (and pretty sure exclusively white) group of the media over any others. if you have earned the accreditation you have earned your right to ask questions - the publications who've had to fight for a one-off pass have probably worked much harder and have a lot more skin in the game to do so than someone on their millionth time around the whole season who's so jaded and checked-out their coverage regularly includes descriptions of their lunch.
people who make the commitment to start out shouldn't be put on a second tier. I had a full-season pass when I worked in Formula E and I never would have expected that to give me access to something people on a one-race pass couldn't get; it was literally just an admin saving device so I didn't have to apply every single round and waste the media team and my own time. it did not make me better than someone who was there for one or two or five rounds that my lanyard was thicker. it did not mean my coverage got more attention and it didn't mean I was more professional or expert.
I probably did have all those credentials. but it wasn't anything to do with which box I ticked when applying for my pass - and your full-season pass isn't judged on those criteria, only on you having got accreditation for enough races the previous year.
(if you'd like to interact with the sanitised LinkedIn version of this then it's here: x)
*that's what a "permanent" pass is and it isn't permanent, it's on a season-by-season basis and dependent on having attended a certain minimum number of races the previous season. it's not a frickin Nando's black card of accreditation.
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