Feb
25
Transparency? What transparency?
“It is the role of good journalism to take on powerful abusers, and when powerful abusers are taken on, there’s always a bad reaction.” – Assange, 2010
Whether you like Julian Assange or agree with his ‘journalism’ there is no denying that his principles are on the money.
Journalists are meant to be the eyes and ears of their audience and community, sniffing out stories and holding the powerful to account.
In a year of swingeing cuts across the country, particularly at local level and to frontline services, the need to scrutinise decisions on behalf of the somewhat helpless public has never been greater.
I spent yesterday afternoon at Preston City Council’s crunch budget meeting, which outlined a number of redundancies and cuts to services.
I had made prior contact with the council’s communications department, to ensure I could live-blog the meeting, and I was told this would be fine provided I didn’t interrupt proceedings.
As I sat in the public gallery, phone and Twitter at the ready, I was told by two members of council staff that I would not be allowed to use my phone in the chamber – they gave no full explanation for their reasoning, and as such I carried on typing away.
This was not an isolated incident. A fellow member of the public, from the protest group Preston Against Cuts, had a camera and was hoping to take photographs of proceedings.
As one councillor, Tory Kathleen Cartwright, saw the lady and her camera, she called on the Mayor to take action.
The Mayor told the photographer that no photographs would be allowed in the chamber, to cries of ‘what are you hiding?’ and ‘democracy my arse!’ from an outraged public gallery.
In the same meeting, the Mayor announced that ‘special dispensation’ had been granted to allow the BBC to film some establishing shots of the chamber in action, but insisted they only film the first four items on the agenda.
Even councillors themselves can spot a problem here.
Outspoken Independent councillor Michael Lavalette, questioned the Mayor’s decision asking the chamber: “why can’t they film the entire thing?”
Preston City Council has taken great strides towards transparency of late, with Liberal Democrat councillor John Potter tabling a motion to have council meetings filmed.
The budget meeting also saw the council embrace live-blogging themselves for the first time, with a dedicated member of council staff furiously trying to keep up with the action in the far corner of the chamber.
But to what extent can a member of the council’s staff be completely detached and impartial?
One o’clock on a Thursday afternoon is already horribly inaccessible for locals, or at least those the council are yet to make redundant; which makes the role of the journalist, or even the average member of the public, even more important.
The council are taking one step forward and two back with their heavy-handed and secretive approach to proceedings at Town Hall.
If they’ve got nothing to hide, why the bad reaction? Assange can’t be right, can he?
