The blogger-city manager sit-down
One of the primary motivations for me to begin blogging back in 2004 was a sense of frustration when reading what was being said about the newspaper in the blogosphere. Some of it was insightful and instructive, but much was wrongheaded and unfair. I realized I needed to get into the game so that I could address, respond and talk.
Hello, Mitch.
I wasn't at the meeting yesterday of the bloggers and the city manager. Two things struck me as I read the coverage of it.
1. The meeting is another example of how the worlds of media and authority have changed. The administrative leader of a mid-sized city, reads blogs and agrees to a meeting to speak with his critics and answer questions. In one sense, it is like any other meeting of concerned citizens, but in a larger sense, it's nothing like it. The participants are all reporters representing themselves. Each is expected to publish a take on the meeting. (My suspicion is that each will be quite different, too.) The blogosphere regulars will read and draw their own conclusions. Non-regulars will do the same, perhaps driven by the box listing the bloggers urls that we ran in the paper. Has this happened before? A high-ranking official sitting down specifically with a diverse group of bloggers -- not the traditional media -- because of what the bloggers were reporting/opining?
I'm not sure Mitch is getting enough credit for reading the blogs, respecting the comments and commenters, and agreeing to a meeting. To me, it has the potential to be another big step in Greensboro's reputation of being a modern new media city.
2. The next step is for Mitch to blog. It's time-consuming, yes. But the benefits are significant. You learn things, gain respect from skeptics and get your message out unfiltered by outlets such as, well, mine. You will still be frustrated by misinterpretations and purposeful distortions. But the best you can do it put your views and facts out here and trust the people to be smart enough to decide the truth for themselves. Plus, you will become more accessible through the conversation, which is only good. You don't have to be the sole host; everyone knows you have a huge, time-consuming job. The others in your office can be contributing hosts, too. So that when someone asks about, say, excavated dirt, the city's engineering manager can address it.
As someone who blogs and represents an institution, I can anticipate your reluctance. But this is the only way to fly. Step in. There is no downside.
Comments (10)
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"The next step is for Mitch to blog."
I disagree. The next step is for the City to hire (and the taxpayers to pay for) a communications director for the City Manager's office. That person's job is to handle only the City Manager's communication, read the blogs, discern which posts are worthy of responses (that is, address substance), research a response, write the response, get the response approved by lawyers because we have pesky personnel and other laws that govern us, let Mitch edit the post to include his style and issues and facts he wants included (if they were omitted), and then set up a blog (with the cooperation of the City IT department if current policy allows for blogs on the City Web site), and then hit the "publish" button.
That new employee's job then becomes to follow all subsequent postings, setting a regular daily meeting with Mitch to go over those postings, determine which should be addressed (see: substance), and then go through paragraph one again.
And if anyone posts a typo or misspelling, a new position (City IT Media Liaison) must be hired, trained, and charged with explaining why the City cannot afford blogging spell check software or why the City's servers are incompatible with spell checking and then recommend that no blog post be uploaded without a panel of grammar experts examining the content first.
Further, the City Manager must schedule a regular meeting with bloggers whose posts did not get a reply in accordance with paragraphs (1) and (2) above and ensure that all responses are evenly distributed among women bloggers, male, young persons (between 15-17), seniors, Hispanic, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, and Cambodian bloggers. That will create the need for a multi-lingual blogging assistant to be hired and a revamping of the City's servers to allow for right-to-left characters (for Israeli and Arabic bloggers) as well as vertical character support for older Chinese bloggers.
Our City Manager should also first ensure that a proper legal review committee is set up to ascertain there is a civilian review board for any phrase or turn of a word that is deemed racist, judgmental, sarcastic, easily misinterpreted, or otherwise could be misconstrued by the average blogger (identified above).
That's when Mitch should blog. But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Posted on February 24, 2007 10:31 AM
The two of you are as responsible as anyone for the historic meeting. Thank you, Blogsboro pioneers.
Posted on February 24, 2007 12:31 PM
I agree about the Communications Director post, and I suggested that very thing to Mitch when we spoke after the meeting formally ended.
Obviously you intended your post to be satirical, Sue, but in the real world it's probably a very practical suggestion.
Posted on February 24, 2007 1:32 PM
I believe Mitch should start by simply meeting monthly for 2 hours with a few similar to what just took place.
As time progresses...the how to's for the future will be clear.
I don't know that Mitch needs to blog...but I do believe he needs to be available to the blog world on a regular basis.
Posted on February 24, 2007 2:14 PM
The last thing we need is someone else in between the people and the public servant. (See my previous post on PR people.)
The problem with regular blog meetups, in my opinion, meblogin, is that it continues to be the one speaking with the few. A blog allows anyone to read the city manager's words and talk back. A meeting involves a relative few. Why limit it?
Posted on February 24, 2007 3:27 PM
I'm not trying to limit. I was trying to keep Mitch's time to a minimum to start and still give him time to do his daily tasks.
If the meeting is recorded as it was this time and then posted....then no limit.
Of course, then again, I am amazed that Ben and a few others have so far chosen to say or report very little from the meeting. I was hoping for a really high quality exchange of ideas....not yet..sigh...
Posted on February 24, 2007 8:20 PM
"The last thing we need is someone else in between the people and the public servant."
C'mon John, I realize he's not the President of the United States, but he's got a job where a great many responsibilites need to be delegated.
The idea is to prioritize to make him MORE accessible while still giving him time to do the other things.
I think you probably operate under similar circumstances, do you not?
Posted on February 25, 2007 10:03 PM
I do, Bubba, and here I am.
My point is that we the media are well-versed in dealing with communications directors, PR firms, public spokesmen, etc. The city has a communications department already. People want to hear from the source, not a spokesperson.
Posted on February 26, 2007 7:13 AM
Having an extra PR person - this one to deal directly with blogs - is definitely a bad idea.
For me the beauty (and sometimes the pain) of the blogosphere is how directly it allows you to deal with people in real-time, how many different kinds of people can be represented, the way there's less of a buffer between reader and writer, news and news-consumer, than ever before.
Extra buffers? Not conducive to blogging.
Posted on February 26, 2007 7:37 PM
I agree Joe.
I believe the recording was great and reached many.
Posted on February 26, 2007 7:57 PM