now we are going to turn onto this row in bristol are has been troubling on this month. let me play you a clip from a press conference last week. the mayor had just got back from giving a ted talk in canada and a reporter was keen to ask him about it. i wondered firstly if you saw the irony in flying so far for a talk in climate change. and secondly, why you couldn t use zoom instead? ok, so you liked the talk? what did you think of the argument i made in it? yeah, i thought it was very interesting, but ijust thought about the irony. let s work through this. do you know what the fundamental argument i made in the talk was? sorry, i thought we were asking you questions. i m just trying to see if we re on the same ground. that s the bristol mayor, marvin rees, and local democracy reporter alex seabrook, known as an ldr. that exchange then continued for a while and remained as tense, i ve got to say. then the press officer got involved. and on that topic, then. alex, may ijust ask a quest
who is in a publicly funded role, and it is all about accountability. when that is threatened, it makes people trying to manage the communication and trying to manage that narrative, it makes them look bad, doesn t it? and frankly it makes them look like they have something to hide. it is something we always say we media train some of our clients, and we say never duck the issue of a question because why would you do that? you can answer it in a very small way. it can be a really bland and boring answer, but you have to answer it. we have a free press and a journalist is in within their rights to keep pushing that question. i m surprised and maybe he did that the reporter didn t go back there again, because i would say any journalist sitting in front of a publicly funded figure is within their right to ask that question. just to be clear, the mayor did answer that question. ijust wanted to bring it in.
which really has qanon as a huge element. and the question of what happened in the 2020 election has essentially ceased to be one that is empirically answerable in american politics. it has become an entirely political question, and no facts seem capable of dissuading people who believe this conspiracy theory of the falseness of it. irene, this is a vast disinformation campaign, if you like. what is it about it that has meant so many people have taken it up? is it a top down thing, or is there something about the way they are using social media to give power to individuals to be part of it? the thing is that there are many things about it. like all conspiracy theories, it has a core truth, meaning that the crux is that child abuse, pornography, paedophilia and corruption are real
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 that the bristol city council spokesperson gave us a statement, which said it is completely false that the local democracy reporters have been banned. all media outlets had been invited, there s been long standing mutual agreement about personnel attending press conferences whenever they announced and held, and that ldrs would not be sent due to the narrow definition of their role
fundamental reset to get back to that. what sort of techniques do they use to try to close down information? the first thing is, they will not answer the phone or answer an e mail. because why would they? because they are leveraging their power as a monopoly. they have a monopoly on being your local council. if they don t answer your e mail or the phone, you often can t run that story because you need 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 b