The line between information and promotion
Greensboro welcomed presidential candidate Barack Obama and his running mateJoe Biden last month, but not everyone was happy about the way the city informed people about it.
Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw said she got complaints that the Coliseum staff has promoted the candidate, via an email list that went out to the media and residents.
The email in question was a press release with some basic information for people who wanted to attend the event. The Coliseum sent it out because Deputy Director Scott Johnson is the city's manager of special events, like the rally.
The potentially questionable portion of the email was the title: "Change We Need Rally with Barack Obama and Joe Biden to the held in Greensboro on Saturday."
Rakestraw called on City Attorney Terry Wood for a verdict, to confirm that city employees will not promote candidates.
"The caption of it was kind of a promotion to Sen. Obama," Wood said.
For the record, the email announcement was prepared by Obama's campaign staff and forwarded by the city to inform people about the major disruption to downtown. It was not "politically driven and in no way is intended to sway a vote" or have political implications, Johnson assured Wood in an email.
"The city is not supposed to be advertising or promoting any particular candidate," Wood said.
Mayor Yvonne Johnson said she hoped if Republican candidate John McCain comes to town, Greensboro city staff will give him similar treatment.
Comments (3)
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A tad sensitive, aren't we?
There's no "promotion" here by the coliseum staff. "The Change We Need" is a marketing brand, and as such, the event was labeled "The Change We Need Rally."
Are you going to change or censor the titles of movies or concerts because it might appear that a venue might be promoting something that somebody disagrees with?
In the event that McCain cared enough about Greensboro to visit, he can name his rally whatever he wants and I'm sure the flyers will refer to it by that name. This is hardly worth anybody's effort, unless the city attorney is just bored.
Why is everybody so sensitive to everything these days?
Posted on October 8, 2008 3:35 PM
I agree with Joseph... I can't believe this is even a topic of discussion. That was the name of the rally. It wasn't an advertisement, and I do agree some are way too sensitive about it. That's why things seem to get done at a snail's pace, because everyone tries to read into everything, when there's nothing to read into most of the time.
Posted on October 13, 2008 9:10 AM
Well there goes Mary again acting foolish and
wasting City staff time.
Mary cannot see the forest for the trees.
Please vote her out of office and let's get some
smart people in there.
Posted on October 13, 2008 5:11 PM