a response from them. you can t go to another council to answer that question. so they can kill the storyjust by not picking up the phone or answering an e mail. charlotte is nodding there. is that what is happening to you? yeah, it happens all the time and you end up having to play this game of hardball with them, saying if you don t get back to me, we will put you did not respond to comments, and they will look worse. sometimes they are prepared to do that they think that by withholding they keep more power that way, and it is incredibly frustrating, especially when it is possible to build up good working relationships with press officers and do back and forth, and that way you are more likely to pick up on the positive stuff. the opening of a new school or something, and giving it more coverage, than you wait if you ve got this really antagonistic relationship with them. what you advise your journalists to do in these circumstances? the problem is that the business model of local
whenever they were held. martin, just to bring you back, doesn t the council have a point in a sense, the local democracy reporting service was set up with a limited remit. council meetings, planning registers, that sort of thing. a press briefing by the mayor, which is already attended by mainstream titles, doesn t merit the presence of a local democracy reporter? it isa it is a good question. at bristol 24 7, we are an independent media company. we are incredibly under resourced, so we are not able to attend every press briefing ourselves, so it s opportunities like that that we very much rely on the service that the ldrs can provide. and then there is the hyper local publications, bristol has bristol has actually got a really buoyant immediate scene, and below the surface, in print, there is still the hyper local publications. one of the best things about the ldr scheme is that the content is shared out between everyone from bbc news to online publications like ourselves to this h
he did. it was a tense exchange but he did answer the question. you are a community organiser for local reporters with the bureau of investigativejournalism. you are also a journalist yourself. what is your experience of working with councils? i mean, frankly, i think we have all been done a favour if a man had never written in the thick of it, because it would only be halfjoking. it sometimes feels like communications managers think it is a documentary and a manualfor how you do public sector, because the serious point is that they increasingly start from the point of view of how do i get the least possible information into the hands of the public, and that is not theirjob. we are in a democracy after all. yourjob is to provide the most possible information, they are paid for the public, by you and me, because journalists are people too, to do exactly that, to foster open and demographic local government and services. i think we need a pretty
with them and hear them discuss things. they didn t think i had a place there at all. but they let you in? a couple of times, i had to go and get my own chair because they wouldn t put a desk or chair out for me. you would think that is a simple courtesy to offer someone. considering back in the day journalists covered council meetings in all their glory whenever they were held. martin, just to bring you back, doesn t the council have a point in a sense, the local democracy reporting service was set up with a limited remit. council meetings, planning registers, that sort of thing. a press briefing by the mayor, which is already attended by mainstream titles, doesn t merit the presence of a local democracy reporter? it is a good question. at bristol 24 7, we are an independent media company. we are incredibly under resourced, so we are not able to attend every press briefing ourselves, so it s opportunities like that that we very much rely on the service that
and co founder of shout communications. welcome all of you to the media show. let us start with you, martin booth. what is your take on what happened between the mayor and the ldr, and why did you decide to join the boycott? so i think we all appreciate, thank you so much for having me on, the necessity of journalists to sometimes ask difficult questions. the fact is that asking the mayor of bristol why he chose to fly to canada to give a iii minute ted talk is a valid question in my opinion. so the issue here is that we don t want bristol city council or the mayor s office to pick and choose which journalists ask questions at these fortnightly press briefings. ijust have to add here