Opinion: Accountability Should Not Be Measured by Minutes Being Videoed

Published on: 13 Mar, 2023
Updated on: 15 Mar, 2023

Cllr Will Salmon

By Will Salmon

Lib Dem borough councillor for Onslow
 
In response to: Dragon Editor on Interviewing Local Politicians

Accountability and time spent on video interviews are not the same thing.

Being a media personality and being an effective councillor are not mutually exclusive, but it is the desire to help our residents that drives most of us, not gaining column inches or “profile”.

So, I don’t think it is helpful to measure the number of opinions expressed in videos or letters to The Dragon; it is members’ participation at council meetings and involvement in our communities that should be the yardstick.

I do agree that communicating with the public is vital so that the residents know what is going on. The council PR team do an excellent job of this, often including the views of our leadership team – has this been measured? (Lib Dems love a bar chart so I’m sure we could oblige…)

But it is then the job of local journalism to follow up such stories, to ask more questions on all sides, to verify and then report facts. In the age of the attention economy, punchy opinions online have gained a currency above actual news, and video is proving a more popular medium than reading words.

The Dragon is not immune to these trends, but just because your business model has changed does not mean that councillors can only be any good if they meet your exacting demands. Why not come to the chamber sometime and ask questions when we are discussing the issues of the day? Why not ask for a quote after the meeting?

It is this precipitous rise of opinion over fact that has led to the rise of misinformation, polarisation and populism. It enables bad actors to feel emboldened to build straw men or to change versions of history, so comfortable that no one is checking facts that they can say what they like with impunity.

For a recent example, R4GV (who are apparently more “accountable” since they do more videos) have claimed that the Lib Dems “stepped aside and asked our leader to take on the council leadership” – this should be interrogated more fully since that is not remotely what happened.

Likewise, their claim that they were the ones to “navigate the challenging Covid years” was factually wrong and incredibly disrespectful to Caroline Reeves who was council leader from May 2019 until September 2020. Caroline led the council response to Covid in those critical first six months, longer than scheduled since both parties wanted to ensure the Council was in a steady state for the agreed handover.

I’m not asking for Woodward and Bernstein (and to stress The Dragon has not published these claims to the best of my knowledge) but an election is coming and yet misinformation like this is out there in the public domain and going unchallenged.

This is where journalism comes in – because my raising these quotes will just be received as yet more ‘mud-slinging’ and ‘political shenanigans’ where all sides are as bad as each other, one opinion against another, and the actual record of events is lost.

Opinion pieces and video interviews have their place but should not be the mainstay of local news. Solid, fact-driven, impartial journalism is needed more than ever. Just like the revival of vinyl in the age of the MP3, good old-fashioned reporting is due a comeback and I hope the Dragon will lead the charge.

Dragon editor Martin Giles

Editor’s response

We do not usually comment on opinion pieces but Cllr Salmons’s article does make claims and includes comment on some of our practices here at The Dragon.

You make a large number of points, let me address them in turn.

I did not say, “accountability and time spent on video interviews… are the same thing” but in the case of Julia McShane, failing to agree an interview date for five months, having initially agreed to do so, is failing to be accountable, in my view, especially for a new leader of the council in whom there is justifiable public interest.

Of course, “being a media personality,” [do we have any?] “and being an effective councillor are not mutually exclusive”. No one has said otherwise, certainly not me.

We have not measured “the number of opinions expressed in videos or letters to The Dragon” and would not suggest that would be the only way accountability should be assessed. But refusing to be interviewed or to communicate (ie certain Conservative councillors) is one important and relevant factor. I believe this is a clear failure to respect the Nolan Principles.

You say: “I do agree that communicating with the public is vital so that the residents know what is going on. The [borough] council PR team do an excellent job of this, often including the views of our leadership team – has this been measured? (Lib Dems love a bar chart so I’m sure we could oblige…).”

It is interesting that you call it the “PR” team. It is officially the “Communications” team. But I can understand the mistake. The team seems to be directed to act as more of a PR team, putting a favourable gloss or spin on stories.

They are also often slow to respond which makes our reporting more difficult. Sometimes they obfuscate or fail to answer questions directly, failing the Openness principle. I place the blame at their leaders and overseeing councillors, not the members of the team.

You say, “it is then the job of local journalism to follow up such stories, to ask more questions on all sides, to verify and then report facts. In the age of the attention economy, punchy opinions online have gained a currency above actual news, and video is proving a more popular medium than reading words.”

We have very limited reporting resource at The Dragon. Nonetheless, although I have not measured it, I am as sure as I can be that The Guildford Dragon follows up more GBC press releases than any other medium, and does seek the views of other parties.

Of course, with more resource we could be more thorough and conduct more research. These days, even the national press has limitations on investigative journalism. I am very proud of the level of our output compared with our resource levels. I only wish we had more reporters so we could report more Guildford news (not just politics) that deserves to be covered.

You say: “The Dragon is not immune to these trends, but just because your business model has changed does not mean councillors can only be any good if they meet your exacting demands. Why not come to the chamber sometime and ask questions when we are discussing the issues of the day? Why not ask for a quote after the meeting?”

I am not sure what you mean by our “business model” but I don’t believe our reporting practices have changed. We probably do use more video that we did when we set out as we have become more used to the necessary tools. And video work, used extensively in other parts of the media, can be more revealing than written reports, it can also be a more efficient way of reporting. But we publish far more written reports than video articles.

As for physical attendance at council meetings, I refer back to my points on resources. But I would say that we report more thoroughly on the council debates we cover than anyone else and I have approached members of your party after meetings who have declined to take questions, even Lib Dem winners at elections!

You say: “It is this precipitous rise of opinion over fact that has led to the rise of misinformation, polarisation and populism. It enables bad actors to feel emboldened to build straw men or to change versions of history, so comfortable that no one is checking facts that they can say what they like with impunity.”

I don’t know who this is aimed at but in my experience politicians, including those at GBC, are not blameless when it comes to encouraging polarisation, changing versions of history, or putting words into opponents’ mouths and then attacking those words. In any case, we publish a wide range of opinion articles but far fewer than other types of articles.

You say: “R4GV (who are apparently more ‘accountable’ since they do more videos) have claimed that the Lib Dems ‘stepped aside and asked our leader to take on the council leadership’ – this should be interrogated more fully since that is not remotely what happened.”

So what did happen? Why have the Lib Dems not responded to the claims and give their better-informed version of events?

You say: “I’m not asking for Woodward and Bernstein (and to stress The Dragon has not published these claims to the best of my knowledge) but an election is coming and yet misinformation like this is out there in the public domain and going unchallenged.”

Well I can only be responsible for what is published in The Dragon, and could not possibly start policing the “public domain”. If you mean social media, I completely agree it is full of misinformation and I wish all politicians would desist from using it, sometimes contributing to the misinformation it contains.

The “Woodward and Bernstein” remark, made me smile. If only we had a tiny proportion of the reporting resources of The Washington Post in the 1970s, when breaking the Watergate scandal. Even that story was very hard to get out because no one would go “on the record”. Some things don’t change!

You say: “This is where journalism comes in – because my raising these quotes will just be received as yet more ‘mud-slinging’ and ‘political shenanigans’ where all sides are as bad as each other, one opinion against another, and the actual record of events is lost.”

Yes, you are complaining about opinions being expressed by giving your opinion. But that’s okay by me. You have your right to express it and I am happy to publish it. Hopefully, others might be better informed having read it.

You say: “Opinion pieces and video interviews have their place but should not be the mainstay of local news. Solid, fact-driven, impartial journalism is needed more than ever. Just like the revival of vinyl in the age of the MP3, good old-fashioned reporting is due a comeback and I hope The Dragon will lead the charge.”

As I said, our news stories far outnumber our opinion pieces but reporting has and will continue to change. The general business model of newspapers will not be able to recover the monopoly it once had on income-raising advertising.

Dame Frances Cairncross with Dragon editor Martin Giles in 2019

But politicians, generally, are not rushing or bending over backwards to help. It has been four years since the Cairncross Review, unfortunately there has been very little action. Until there is, resources will continue to be the main, sometimes fatal, constraint for local journalism. I am not confident that The Dragon will survive.

See: MPs’ Report Highlights the Guildford Dragon’s Fight for Survival

And as an example of effective interviewing, please see Hugh Coakley’s interview with George Potter. Well-mannered but challenging, very informative and, for some who might have a different version of events, provocative.

But sadly I’m afraid, I have concluded that most politicians are not really interested in effective reporting, they are more concerned about, and sensitive to, criticism that might affect public perception and their election chances. When they feel under attack they blame the messenger. It’s not new. I think we have had it from all the local parties at some stage.

Finally, The Guildford Dragon NEWS is not perfect, of course not, you might not think it is very good, nonetheless, we continue to produce Guildford news as best we can with the resources we have.

And we remain fiercely independent, we bow to the wishes of no political party, organisation or paymaster. We strive to be objective and impartial and we answer to our readers (including councillors) who can, and often do, comment on anything we publish.

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