IHSA bans photogs from state tourney

Press photographers from daily newspapers in Bloomington, Peoria, Springfield and two Chicago suburbs were banned from covering Illinois' two-day, eight-game high school football championship games in Urbana last weekend by the Illinois High School Association.

IHSA officials said that the papers had violated the IHSA's policy on secondary sales of images from state tournament events, and therefore were not given access to the field.

IHSA executive director Marty Hickman said, "While the Illinois Press Association has indicated its willingness to compromise on this matter, its actions have spoken much louder than its words. We asked the IPA [Illinois Press Association] to have its members refrain from selling photos of our events while we continued to work to resolve this issue. We presented the IPA with a proposal nearly two weeks ago and they have yet to respond."

Some professional photojournalists say a boycott of IHSA sporting events might influence state associations who seek to control the conditions that newspapers agree to in order to receive credentials, including secondary use of newspapers' own images and print sales.

For a complete story from the National Press Photographers Association, go to
http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2007/11/illinois03.html