Should ministers only be on free channels?

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Oldjohnw
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Location: South Warwickshire

Re: Should ministers only be on free channels?

Post by Oldjohnw »

PH wrote:
reohn2 wrote:IMHO they should be on every available means of public communication.

Have you any examples where they're not? Is there any piece of ministerial information exclusively available from one source?


The vast amount of (detailed) information is in the several times a day posts which you can receive to your inbox or view on various departmental websites.
John
reohn2
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Joined: 26 Jun 2009, 8:21pm

Re: Should ministers only be on free channels?

Post by reohn2 »

PH wrote:
reohn2 wrote:IMHO they should be on every available means of public communication.

Have you any examples where they're not? Is there any piece of ministerial information exclusively available from one source?

No and no :wink:
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Psamathe
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Joined: 10 Jan 2014, 8:56pm

Re: Should ministers only be on free channels?

Post by Psamathe »

brooksby wrote:
PH wrote:We live in a information age, like it or not, I doubt there's anything on one platform that isn't reported on another. There can't be many people with no access to any important information who haven't made that decision to exclude for themselves.
The tough bit isn't getting the information but filtering out the bits you deem relevant, many of us will choose a limited number of sources to do that for us and hope that our trust isn't misplaced.


But our Prime Minister doing interviews and presentations *on Facebook*?? Ridiculous.

One aspect that I don't know the answer to is licensing and publishing on Facebook. When something is published on Facebook licenses are granted to Facebook that can become complex. For example (much) content from Wikipedia/ WikiMedia (commons) cannot be published on Facebook because the CC-BY license a lot of content uses requires attribution but when you post something on Facebook "you" are granting Facebook a license that is different from the CC-BY license the material was made available under. I wonder how this might affect interviews on Facebook. The "owner" still owns the copyright but grants Facebook a non-exclusive license so the "owner" could still grant others license to use the work. And then there is "fair use" ... and I don't know enough about copyright law and licensing, etc.

The problem with Facebook and a lot of Social Media is it is not so much deciding to "exclude yourself" but being unhappy about or unprepared to accept that "you" become the product and you need to relinquish aspects of privacy (something I don't have to do watching e.g. my TV broadcast news).

Ian
PH
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Re: Should ministers only be on free channels?

Post by PH »

Psamathe wrote: One aspect that I don't know the answer to is licensing and publishing on Facebook.
Ian

There are guidelines about what information posted on social media can be used elsewhere, from ipso and probably also from the service providers. But they're much the same rules as reporting on something overheard in a pub, there has to be a case why it shouldn't be and even that can be overruled if it's in the public interest. There is no licensing that could stop you reporting on something said elsewhere, there may be some requirement to state where that came from "Mr X wrote YYY on facebook..." but I'm not sure.
The problem with Facebook and a lot of Social Media is it is not so much deciding to "exclude yourself" but being unhappy about or unprepared to accept that "you" become the product and you need to relinquish aspects of privacy (something I don't have to do watching e.g. my TV broadcast news).

Yes, I get that and I would agree if it was exclusive content, in the context of this thread I've seen no examples.
brooksby
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Location: Bristol

Re: Should ministers only be on free channels?

Post by brooksby »

Oldjohnw wrote:
brooksby wrote:We got a letter last week. I'm presuming Johnson didn't actually sign it himself but got his name printed on (like Trump's bailout cheques that have had to be printed with his name on *definitely not to remind people to vote for him*).


Did you really expect him to actually sign 30m letters? His name is on because he is the PM. It's how it works.


No, of course I didn't. It was a (failed) attempt at humour :roll:
Oldjohnw
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Joined: 16 Oct 2018, 4:23am
Location: South Warwickshire

Re: Should ministers only be on free channels?

Post by Oldjohnw »

brooksby wrote:
Oldjohnw wrote:
brooksby wrote:We got a letter last week. I'm presuming Johnson didn't actually sign it himself but got his name printed on (like Trump's bailout cheques that have had to be printed with his name on *definitely not to remind people to vote for him*).


Did you really expect him to actually sign 30m letters? His name is on because he is the PM. It's how it works.


No, of course I didn't. It was a (failed) attempt at humour :roll:


Got it. Ta.
John
gbnz
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Joined: 13 Sep 2008, 10:38am

Re: Should ministers only be on free channels?

Post by gbnz »

mercalia wrote:should be on radio.


Effectively they are, covered on the Covid 19 briefing daily on Radio 4. Personally I just wish they'd get rid of that old fart who hmms and argh, between every word he pronounces (NB. I believe both Dominic Rabb and Professor Stephen Powis do it).

On timing the Professor the other day, every third word he stated in his briefing was an argh or hmm. Went on for minutes at a time, hmming and arghing (NB. I had to change over to Smooth Radio to avoid it!)
Psamathe
Posts: 17650
Joined: 10 Jan 2014, 8:56pm

Re: Should ministers only be on free channels?

Post by Psamathe »

gbnz wrote:.....
Effectively they are, covered on the Covid 19 briefing daily on Radio 4. Personally I just wish they'd get rid of that old fart who hmms and argh, between every word he pronounces (NB. I believe both Dominic Rabb and Professor Stephen Powis do it).

On timing the Professor the other day, every third word he stated in his briefing was an argh or hmm. Went on for minutes at a time, hmming and arghing (NB. I had to change over to Smooth Radio to avoid it!)

As a bit of an aside, in my day one difficulty was "academically brilliant" and "good public speaking" didn't always go together. My Zoology Professor was brilliant but make him give a talk and he'd be throwing-up in the toilet before it (virtually always). Bit I don't know this Prof Powis and even these days one would assume that people who agree to news interviews and public prominent positions would cope better.

Ian
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