Chalk this one up to the great moments in unintentional irony department. I just received an invitation to "the industry's first BlogWorld and New Media Expo." What's interesting is that the only people who can get in with a media pass are traditional press. Just what kind of blog and new media show is this?

Here is the best part:

Press credentials are open only to accredited members of the professional media and will require submission of articles and verification that you intend to write for a publication on the conference.

Well, what counts as a publication? There are plenty of A-list bloggers out there who, under specific readings of this language, would not qualify as press. These bloggers have large and often influential audiences. But these bloggers are not journalists and do not claim to be. Will the show organizers ignore these people and leave them out? Or would they, too, qualify as press? And if these bloggers qualify as press, just who, or what, becomes the criteria for press?

In a new media world do these distinctions -- press and nonpress -- even make sense? What do you think?