Posts Tagged ‘hill times’

I don’t often pile on. But I can’t help myself. I have to take a couple of kicks at  Angelo Persichilli’s latest column in the Hill Times.

Angelo Persichilli is the Politics Editor of Corriere Canadese, a national Italian-language newspaper, and a dedicated opinionist, with a column in the Hill Times and in the Toronto Star besides his work for Corriere. And he got himself some significant attention recently when he wrote in the Star that a group of Liberal MPs had met in the bar of the Chateau Laurier to discuss getting Bob Rae into the leadership of the Liberal Party, and Michael Ignatieff out.

The column was roundly criticized for its lack of attribution for quotes, among other things. So reading (thanks to Chris Selley’s National Post column) that according to Persichilli, the Internet and politics means that

a lot of information might reach millions of people unfiltered. While this provides a great opportunity for the truth to reach millions, we may also be flooded by faulty, incomplete and outright wrong information, as well as malicious attack and some plain lies.

This will clog the system making it hard to see the difference between truth and lies and justified and unjustified accusations. Essentially, without the filter of editors, producers, and responsible journalists, what exists now is a jungle of bloggers. There is no doubt that the internet has and will continue to let the truth reach people, the problem is that we no longer know what’s true and what’s not.

Later in the column, Persichilli suggests that

I don’t know how many hits websites of the major political organizations have every day. Given the ease with which people can access them, I hope there are millions. Otherwise I think they should take them down and completely refocus their aim. The only time we hear about them is when they show controversial items that systematically create problems for the image of their own political organization.

I don’t know where to begin with what Persichilli writes and appears to think.

First, his focus is almost entirely on mainstream media vs. bloggers and particuarly those affiliated with the mainstream political parties.

Second, it’s impossible to ignore the irony of Persichilli criticizing bloggers after being roundly castigated for his Star column, which it should be assumed benefited from the “filter of editors, producers, and responsible journalists” he writes about.

I think the great frustration of the last decade in Canadian politics where it meets the internet has been the lack of trailblazers who are using the tools of social media to really make a difference in the process of government. Look, for example, at David Miliband in the UK, who as Foreign Secretary is at the head of a line of dozens of bloggers, both politicians and public servants.

What is needed in Canada’s political scene are places where people put forth thoughtful and reasoned opinions that become the basis of informed discussion. Slagging bloggers won’t do it, nor will uninformed journalism.

What will do it is a commitment by political parties and by individual politicians to begin engaging in conversation, not just continue using social media channels to re-blast the same old messages down a one-way street. What is also needed is a commitment by government to support responsible bloggers within its departments, and a decision to stop blocking the use of social media tools by its employees.What’s happening right now is that social media engagement in much of Canada’s federal government is spasmodic and project-limited, not defined by conversation and engagement.

There are a lot of smart, competent politicians (my MP Paul Dewar, for example, who I think is a diligent and serious-minded parliamentarian) AND public servants here in Ottawa working for the feds (Nick Charney and Colin McKay come to mind), as well as in the provincial and municipal governments. Let’s turn them loose a little bit.