Lee Gilmore was a member of โMedia Mecca,โ Burning Manโs media relations team. In the Sept. 2, 1999 issue of Black Rock Gazette, a now-defunct Burning Man publication, she wrote about Media Meccaโs goal of โinitiatingโ journalists at the event by encouraging them to engage rather than spectate. The objective, she wrote, was โto introduce media to the magic of Burning Manโ and โto educate media and participants about the mediaโs role.โ
That year, Burning Man attracted around 10,000 peopleโabout one seventh the number who attended last year. But the organizationโs relationship with the press was already complicated and contentiousโunderstandably so. Burning Man lends itself to shallow coverage of party antics and salacious photos of scantily costumed bodies, something upon which many people have tried to cash in. In 2002, Burning Man sued Voyeur Video, a company that had been filming naked women at the event and selling the videos on a website. Voyeur Videoโs owner, Jim OโBrien, responded in a CNN interview, โWe just shoot what goes on. โฆ Consider us a news company.โ
To stop just anyone with a camera or video recorder from claiming to be a journalist, the Burning Man organization has, for the last 20 years, issued press passes. On the festivalโs website, a page dedicated to archiving coverage acknowledges the mediaโs โlarge role in sharing Burning Man culture with the world,โ adding the caveat of โfor better or worse, depending on the accuracy of the coverage.โ
As the festival grew, so did Media Mecca. Photographers, documentarians and journalists must now submit media proposals well in advance of the event and may be prohibited from pursuing those projects if they donโt receive approval from Media Mecca. And the Burning Man organizationโs concerns with media coverage go well beyond accuracy. The application for press credentials states things like, โThe โfirst-timer at Burning Manโ narrative rarely makes it through the proposal process.โ
In her โ99 article, Gilmore noted that in order to give journalists โtime to develop their perspectives,โ those seeking to โinterview key organizersโ needed to show up three days prior to the eventโs kickoff. Nearly two decades later, the organization turned down a media request made by this paper to interview some of the mental health professionals who volunteer their time to staff the eventโs โmed tentsโ about preparations being made for 2018 in the wake of a suicide at the event last year. The request, made a month and a half in advance of the event, was denied due to a lack of timeโand despite several sources having confirmed their willingness to talk.
Burning Man claims to be more than a party in the desert. Organizers and participants like to call Burning Man a โtemporary city.โ And the bureaucracy involved in organizing it fits that description, with the organization working year-round with agencies ranging from county and tribal governments to the Nevada Highway Patrol. But unlike an actual city, the organization feels entitled to interfere with the work of journalists.
If Burning Man wants journalists to cover its โtemporary communityโ with articles that look beyond costumed partying, it should stop trying to quash the free press. ฮฉ