Wednesday, 29 July 2009

Typical.

This annoying little chat between
Tory Politico
and the CCHQ press office just came to TB's attention:

Tory Politico: “Hi there I wonder if you can help me. I run the Conservative supporting blog Tory Politico at tory-politico.com, and was wondering if you could send me a copy of the press release that has just been issued about the letter send from David Cameron to the Prime Minister seeking clarification on his position regarding TV debates.
Press Officer: “who do you work for?”
TP: “tory-politico.com.”
PO: “so your not a member of the media.”
TP: “No I am a Conservative party member and a blogger.”
PO: “sorry I cant help you.”
TP: “Why not?”
PO: ”Bloggers don’t count as media so I cant send it to you.”
TP: “Right, so you don’t see blogs as important then, is that right?:
PO: “Yes.”
TP: “So what about the likes of Iain dale and ConservativeHome, are they media? are they seen as important?”
PO: “Yes we feel that they are representatives of the media, and yes we do see them as an important conduit?”
TP: “But you just said blogs don’t count as media.”
PO: “We see them as important conservative commentators not bloggers, we feel that independent bloggers do not provide an efficient means of communicating the Conservative message.”
TP: “Not efficient means of communicating the Conservative message - Im a Conservative blogger, all I blog about is politics and the Conservative party, I think that’s evident from my blogs title.”
PO: “Im sorry, but I have already told you that I cannot send you a copy of the press release you asked for.”
TP: “OK, can you add my details to the press release distrobution list so that future releases and notices are sent to me?”
PO: “No.”
TP: “Because blogs are not important.”
PO: “Yes.”

Hmmmmmm.

TB recommends that TP finds a friend in the lobby who gets the releases and sets up an autoforward to his email account. Not that TB has done that.

Honest guv.

13 comments:

GreenKeane
said...

Or, y'know, he could join a party that lives in the 21st century, not making any specific suggestions. :P

Morus
said...

If anyone knows who the "Press Officer" is (and can offer a plausible explanation as to how they can be so certain), I might be tempted to offer a prize.

Email morus1516 [AT] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment with my name on PoliticalBetting.com

Martin
said...

Keane, the suggestion that you are "not" making would, in fact, put TP into a party trying to take humanity back to the stone age.

GreenKeane
said...

Au contraire, mon ami. The fact that I (and every other Green) are online would seem to make a nonsense of your jest, and I rather fail to see how ensuring our electricity supply is sustainable far into the future is taking us backward!

Anyway, I only was referring to Mr/Mrs Tory Press Officer's opinion that blogs aren't suitable media, so cool your jets. :P

Anonymous said...

He could directly email Eric Pickles... bet Mr Pickles won't be happy with that exchange.

Plenty
said...

This is a disgrace. The Tories rely on these sort of people for support. Cutting off the hand to spite the face comes to mind....

IanVisits
said...

Bizarre!

Even if a press officer doesn't want to offer accreditation (access to insider info) to every tom, dick and harry who sets up a blog - to refuse to send public press releases to someone is just weird.

Having said that, there is an email subscription form on the Conservatives website in the "news" section, so there isn't actually a need to phone up the press office and ask to be added to the mailing list.

Personally, I use the websites own RSS feeds to keep up to date with Tory press office statements.

Much easier ;)

Anonymous said...

What a crock.

DominicJ said...

Why arent press releases not readily available to everyone?

My employers are.
The sole purpose of a press release is to inform people of something.
Why the hell would you give it "exclusivity"?

Anonymous said...

Er, just get it from the news section of the party website..?

John Moorcraft
said...

In many respects, this exchange demonstrates one of the problems with the bloggersphere at the moment.

Back in the early days, political blogs were great as they offered the chance to get an alternative view to that pumped out by the mainstream. This is of course still the case. However, the political blogging world now itself has a mainstream. The likes of Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes are no longer your little men with a keyboard putting their view across. They are as part of the mainstream media establishment as the Daily Telegraph or the BBC.

The best stuff on the bloggersphere these days is to be found where it is the armchair hack with just a basic blog and his or her thoughts.

Owen
said...

They can be downloaded from conservatives.com anyway

Anonymous said...

The Conservative party is not "Conservative", nor is it a "party" in any sense of the word..
And yes my comments should be allowed..
Or is free speech dead?

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