The Liberal Party of Canada's plan to deny bloggers media accreditation to their upcoming January 2012 convention contradicts the party's plans to engage Canadians in rebuilding efforts.
The decision demonstrates a lack of recognition of the impact bloggers have on social media and by extension, public opinion. The Liberals have said that bloggers who are affiliated with recognized media outlets will be given media accreditation, while volunteer bloggers who are not Liberal party members (and therefore ineligible to be elected as a delegate) will be expected to pay $1,100 to register to attend the convention. The Liberal Party is choosing to financially disadvantage the little guy in favour of big corporations that own media outlets, who can send representatives for free.
Liberal bloggers appear to be the most incensed by the decision, leaving the Liberal Party's blogging allies, some of whom likely would have sought to attend the convention to sing the party's praises, instead condemning the Liberal decision to discourage bloggers.
Candidates for the party executive are calling on the party to change their decision, and the mainstream media is providing a platform for bloggers to react as well.
What the Liberal Party seems to have missed is that bloggers and traditional journalists cover stories very differently. Blogging has advanced considerably over the years, with many bloggers conducting original research, providing more detailed analysis, and being able to operate without the time and space constraints traditional media has to struggle with.
In 2008, I began blogging on my personal website and as an active Liberal at the time was fairly partisan. In early 2009, when the Ontario NDP held their leadership race and received scant coverage from mainstream media outlets, a friend and I decided to launch a website called Current on the Wire. Our goal was to develop non-partisan, in-depth, new media content for New Democratic bloggers and campaigns to use to help Ontario NDP members learn about their candidates. We were able to get each of the four candidates to sit down with us for 15 minutes for on-camera interviews, and were given media accreditation to the NDP convention without any hassles.
When the PCs held their leadership race in June 2009, my friend and I decided to once again provide non-partisan new media coverage to that campaign and once again found a political party and candidates more than willing to engage with bloggers to share their story.
In many ways blogging and coverage of political events go hand in hand as party members make such a small percentage of the general population that really detailed coverage is most viable when designed for online communities.
The concept of micro-targeting isn't totally lost on the Liberal Party. They did just finish a successful fundraising effort to have a million conversations with Canadians the Liberals believe will support them in 2015. In the video to launch the fundraising drive, the announcer proudly boasts that membership is up, engagement is underway and states: "'but one of the big lessons we learned May 2 is that we need to start reaching out today to the Canadians who support us in 2015. Politics isn't rocket science. It's about people talking to people about the issues they care about."
The Liberal Party of Canada has an opportunity to embrace technology as a tool for rebuilding their damaged brand and engage their supporters. Bloggers provide a valuable avenue to build online support for the party and encourage Liberals to participate in conversations with each other about the issues they care about.
The January 2012 convention is supposed to be about rebuilding the Liberal Party. In that spirit, the Liberals should allow bloggers to be part of the process on a level playing field with other media.
Follow John Laforet on Twitter: www.twitter.com/laforet
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I think to engage with the online community they should stream some of the speaches and policy-ideas that are floated around. I know a few bloggers at the convention are streaming alot of info on their twitter account.... I really wish we'd stop pulling at straws and acting like the Liberal Party only needs to do this or that to regain credibility. The reality is that there is alot the Liberals can do to engage both online and offline communities through new ideas and open discussions across Canada.
The problems are endemic, and top driven. These problems aren't going away until they choose to notice that the leadership of the party, policy and talking heads, are the problem.
"ineffectual upper Canada elitists"
What else explains a plan that would exclude the foundations of a modern, tech-savy, grass-roots support mechanism.
The kind of support that will work hard for free.
Just as hard as we see the liberal supporters work in these comments pages.
Every little bit helps.
I guess the big thinkers at Liberal HQ just don't appreciate you efforts.
It strikes me as a terrible waste of talent ,energy, and passion.
Merry Christmas
It is surprising because it defies logic and the Liberals had to go out of their way to change the rules on this.
Part of me wonders if there was a fear that there would be a significant expense if armies of bloggers wanted accreditation. That said, this is the third party we are talking about, and a convention that is only really meaningful to Liberal partisans -- hardly the hottest story of 2012 unfolding.
The Liberals should be encouraging anyone and everyone who is prepared to cover a convention designed to kick off the rebuilding process to show up and be in a position to do so. As the third party, I am not certain they will attract a whole lot of positive coverage in the mainstream media over such a nuts and bolts convention anyway.
Bloggers are their best hope.
Merry Christmas to you as well.
Cheers !