Category: Communications disease

The Mayor and his press people are showing how totally up themselves they are today. They are celebrating how well the Londoner did at one of those black tie, West End hotel type shindigs where everyone congratulates themselves on how great they are.

How can this be news? How can this be a reason for this expensive press management organisation to produce a finely crafted press release?

Astoundingly the Londoner got the award for journalism in a council publication at the Good Communications Awards 2007. Since when was the Londoner journalism? One-sided cheerleading for the Mayor it certainly does. It never, never does journalism. At its best journalism is a process which looks at news from all sides. The Londoner only ever talks about the projected benefits of the Mayor’s policies. Never the costs. It never discusses failure. How can an in house puff piece ever be described as journalism?

Apparently the judges said:

A worthy winner. A tabloid paper that competes on equal terms with the London frees. It offers a good range of bright stories both news and features, but what really sets this item apart is the quality of the writing, with great intros and not a wasted word. This is journalism of national newspaper quality.

The line that really stands out is “A tabloid paper that competes on equal terms with the London frees”. As some of you may know from a previous posting the Londoner is not a conventional newspaper. It does not have to compete with anyone. The Mayor simply gives it £3 million per annum.

Redmond O’Neill, the Mayor’s Director of Public Affairs, is quoted in the press release as follows:

Since we launched the Londoner five years ago, the percentage of people who say they are informed about the work of the Mayor has almost tripled. Today, more people get their information about the work of the Mayor from the monthly Londoner, than the daily Evening Standard.

People have a choice about spending 50p on the Evening Standard. Its coverage is not perfect but you get stories that cover London from a whole range of angles. There is no choice with the Londoner, except to throw it in the bin.

Redmond O’Neill is not a conventional civil servant. He was not recruited to the GLA by any kind of conventional selection process. He is one of Livingstone’s cronies from Socialist Action described by the Guardian as a “Trotskyite splinter group “. O’Neill’s Trotskyite days are behind him now of course, according to the TaxPayers’ Alliance Town Hall Rich List O’Neill earned £117,882 in 2005/6. Lovely.

Coincidentally Ealing’s own Around Ealing magazine won the award for design at the same awards. The Ealing comms people have had the good sense not to do a self-indulgent, look at me job. To the Ealing team I say well done on your very credible award and well done on your good taste.

Yesterday the Scotland on Sunday newspaper was commenting on the wasteful way the Scottish Executive was using advertising. They spend something like £68 million a year. In London we know that this is rank amateurism as our own Transport for London can spend £78 million on advertising and communications all by itself.

Like me you might have seen the recent ad campaign, with its cartoon engine on wheels character, from the Department for Transport and wondered what it all costs. The answer is £10 million according to an e-mail I just received. The campaign includes billboards, online, print and this website. An emetic “Show you care” box allows you to sign up for further information on the campaign. I asked the DfT how much it was all costing, what their objectives were and how their achievement of these objectives would be measured. I look forward to a long tussle in about six months to get sight of their post campaign impact research.

Dear Phil

Thank you for your email about the Act on CO2 campaign. The Department for Transport is investing £10m over the last fiscal year and the current one to support this campaign.

The campaign encourages the existing driving public to consider:-

• purchasing a car with a more fuel efficient engine; and
• the way they treat their engine when they drive.

Specific key peformance (sic) indicators, which will be measured in research, are:

• To increase the number of new car buyers who identify the impact on the environment as one of the top 5 factors taken into account when choosing their next car; and
• To increase the number of people who strongly disagree with the statement “the way a person drives has so little impact on the environment it is not worth worrying about.”

I hope this is helpful.

Regards etc

We should not be surprised by all of this as the government spent £321 million on advertising through the Central Office of Information in the 2005/6 financial year – something like three times what was spent before New Labour (see previous posting). The total for all state comms spending is more likely to be around the £1 billion mark.

On Tuesday MPs debated a new communications allowance. Jack Straw is the Leader of the House and led the debate which saw MPs voting themselves a £10K a year comms allowance. This will allow them to spend £10K each telling us how great they are.

I am happy to say that almost all the Tories voted against it although two did not: Quentin Davies and Bob Spink. What a couple of boobies? All the Labour MPs voted for except for two: Kelvin Hopkins and Lynne Jones. The LibDems were typically conflicted but some of the more sensible ones like David Laws and Chris Hune voted against.

Our three local Labour MPs, Khabra, Pound and Slaughter, all voted for their extra cash. Shame on them.

Follow the link for the complete list of shame. Ayes bad. Noes good.