For decades, some very bright lines have created a caste system in the congressional press corps. Those from the “old media,” the pencil-wielding reporters for newspapers and magazines, have had freedom to scour the Capitol’s nooks and crannies, where the actual legislative decision-making and political infighting go on. Those carrying television cameras, the principal tool of the newer media, have been relegated to places where news conferences and photo ops are staged.

But those lines are blurring by the day as reporting’s very definition is altered by “media convergence,” the concept that all news organizations — to chase the flow of advertising to the Internet — must offer both written and broadcast content on their Web sites. Print reporters especially are being pressed to do more than just fill their notebooks and then file written narratives; an increasing number are being given small digital cameras or video recorders so that they can augment the online versions of their stories with moving pictures and sound.

So far, the arrival of the multi-media reporter has been greeted with bemusement, and little else, in state capitals, federal agencies and even the six congressional office buildings, where video recording is generally allowed in any committee meeting, or hallway, where a TV crew is permitted. But the old rules delineating sharply between TV and print reporters are still supposed to be in force in the Capitol itself, where some of the most heated competition for stories remains.

As a result the rules are being challenged and occasionally violated, setting off ill will within the press corps and between the journalists and those they cover. And both the reporters and the reported upon must agree on any changes, because — in a situation nearly unique in American journalism — governance of the congressional press is shared by the scribes and their sources. In theory the House and Senate could roll back, or revoke, reporting privileges. To avoid that possibility, the pressure is on for Capitol Hill reporters to figure out new boundaries for their places in 21st-century news gathering.

“We’ve seen the members react and get quite angry and threaten to evict reporters from the Capitol if they break the rules,” said Bill Walsh of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, who chairs the group that governs the “gallery,” or newsroom, for newspapers and wire services. “It’s called the ‘people’s House,’ but really it’s Congress’ house. They can throw us out any time they want.”

The people who run the radio-TV gallery have a clear position: Print reporters wanting to use video cameras should have to apply for membership in their group and then follow the rules governing reporting with recordings. (Today, no journalist may be credentialed by more than one gallery: periodical, photographer, radio-TV or daily print, to which CQ’s reporting staff belongs. Each may discipline only its own members.) A few people from the print news organizations, including the Web arms of The New York Times and Gannett, have been granted radio-TV credentials, and The Politico, the Hill’s newest newspaper and Web site, has also applied; its editors have said they want some reporters to carry video cameras.

Steve Chaggaris of CBS News, chairman of the radio-TV gallery, says he’s seeking a deal with his print counterparts on a new credentialing process that better reflects the blurring lines.

In one respect, the old-style TV crews have plenty to gain, because the current system doesn’t do them many favors. The lobby outside the Senate chamber, for example, is off limits to them except Tuesday afternoons, when cameras on tripods may be set up at a fixed spot in hope of luring senators leaving their weekly caucus lunches. But print and also radio reporters (even with tape recorders) have relatively unfettered permission to go as they please and buttonhole at will.

The print folks, predictably, are happy with the status quo and generally don’t want to double as videographers — whatever the convergence dreams of their corporate bosses. “They’re squeezing a lot more work out of same people to develop skills across media that they’re not principally trained in,” said Edward Wasserman (no relation), a journalism ethics professor at Washington and Lee University. In addition, most members of this generation of lawmakers, the Times-Picayune’s Walsh notes, are “going to be much more guarded if they see a camera nearby” unless it’s at a staged event.

Such was apparently the case last spring in the most celebrated case of alleged handheld camera abuse. Alaska’s Ted Stevens, dean of the Senate GOP, complained vociferously that he’d been deceived into an interview in which a reporter — ironically a TV correspondent, Joe Johns of CNN — used a video recorder. Johns was exonerated by the radio-TV gallery, but soon after Senate leaders denied its request to allow TV cameras more regularly outside the Senate chamber.

Lawmaker fear of being “ambushed” is one big reason why the convergence wave may not reach the Capitol soon. “It used to be when you were in front of the camera, you were careful about what you’d say,” said Patrick Sellers, a professor at Davidson College who’s writing a book about Congress and the press. “Now, anything you do outside your home is fair game.”

Contributing editor Elizabeth Wasserman is a Washington freelance writer. She can be reached at ewasserman@cq.com.