False information in Political Life

I have just been reading a blog post on the site of Duncan Crow (Conservative Councillor for Furnace Green on Crawley Borough Council) about a misleading mailer put out by Labour in the local area

Now whilst I don't know the in's and out's of this particular case from my experience with the Local Council it is really not a surprise, I have always found the comments made in many political flyers to be very misleading at best and downright deceptive at worst. When I was campaigning I regularly read things that entirely mislead the reader and encountered many tactics like the one Cllr Crow mentioned where something that can not be accepted is proposed simply so it has to be turned down.

I have always wondered how effective this kind of dirty tricks campaigning is as I would hope that the general public would be too smart to go for this, but then as the people who do it keep getting elected I guess my faith in mankind may be a little too idealistic. But anyway my main reason of bringing this up is to say isn't it time that the contents of Political literature is checked for accuracy? I find it crazy that the Advertising Standards Commission do not have the power to check these things for accuracy, in fact you can make any outlandish claims you want and to hell with the truth (I call this the Lib Dem Model)

Going forward I would like to see not just the leaflets checked for honesty (With very harsh penalties for deliberately misleading voters) but I would also like to have all politicians held to account for the contents of their manifesto with an annual review where they would have to update the electorate on progress against what was promised, this doesn't mean that plans can't change as that would obviously hamstring the council to a policy that may be 3 years out of date but at the very least if they are not keeping their promises they need to stand up and say why.

Digital Vs. Print

I read a blog entry on the blog of Deputy Council Leader Duncan Crow's Blog, His blog was about feeling old at Crawley carnival. Now this in itself did not surprise me, after all I feel to old to go to the carnival and Duncan has almost 10 years on me. (he will probably be really upset and tell me it is 5 years, but he is older than me.) What interested me was a comment he made on press coverage that he has recieved in the past.

"I take zero notice of newspapers, particularly ones that I suspect may have a professional jealousy of this blog."

I have to admit that I found this quite interesting, Blogging is a medium by which in essence we can all become reporters, but unlike the press which have to sell their product and attract advertisers we can blog about whatever we like, and more importantly don't have to cover what doesn't interest us. You will never see a blogger standing on a bridge in the rain waiting to report on a fun run going past unless he has an interest on it.

Does this make the life of a blogger preferable to the life of a reporter (Aside from the fact we don't get paid.) The fact that it only costs you your time surely means that the New Media is the most open form of discussion today, however it is also this which limits its appeal, when you pick up the New York Times or the FT you expect to recieve a certain level of reporting, a blog can be anything.

I doubt that the Crawley News are actually jelous of a blog, even though Cllr Crow's blog has a readership which extends around the globe from the US to China, can the Crawley News say the same? but I think there is areal chance that with the correct organisation Blogging could easily start to replace more traditional media. it just remains to be seen if this is a good thing.

Here is an idea, How about a newspaper of blog posts? each day you can search the previous days blog posts and then provide a compendium of blogs in print format, with a crossword and Suduku puzzle.