Comments on: National media muzzle frustrates local candidate http://www.newswire.co.nz/2008/11/national-muzzles/ Journalism from the Whitireia Journalism School, Cuba Street, Wellington. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:36:53 +1300 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Julie Fairey http://www.newswire.co.nz/2008/11/national-muzzles/comment-page-1/#comment-610 Julie Fairey Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:29:53 +0000 http://www.newswire.co.nz/?p=1586#comment-610 Very interesting article - I think your findings reflect National's "play it safe" campaign strategy. I only attended 2 candidate debates this election but found their candidates took similar approaches - sticking only to limited topics which in one case meant she read every single answer from a prepared speech or the policy manual (and this was a candidate who has already been in Parliament at least one term). When I emailed our election survey to their candidates directly I got no responses. Whereas from Labour (the only party with more candidates) they started to trickle in. So a while later I emailed National's campaign people directly (along with a few other tardy parties), still no response. A third email to the candidates again resulted in a response from their Women's Affairs spokesperson Jackie Blue who apologised and told me she thought it had been dealt with and she would follow it up. A day or so later I got a full reply to our survey, from a National staffer in the Leader's Office. So even the Women's Affairs spokesperson was not allowed to respond to a blog survey on her portfolio area. That's pretty mega control. Very interesting article – I think your findings reflect National’s “play it safe” campaign strategy. I only attended 2 candidate debates this election but found their candidates took similar approaches – sticking only to limited topics which in one case meant she read every single answer from a prepared speech or the policy manual (and this was a candidate who has already been in Parliament at least one term).

When I emailed our election survey to their candidates directly I got no responses. Whereas from Labour (the only party with more candidates) they started to trickle in. So a while later I emailed National’s campaign people directly (along with a few other tardy parties), still no response. A third email to the candidates again resulted in a response from their Women’s Affairs spokesperson Jackie Blue who apologised and told me she thought it had been dealt with and she would follow it up. A day or so later I got a full reply to our survey, from a National staffer in the Leader’s Office. So even the Women’s Affairs spokesperson was not allowed to respond to a blog survey on her portfolio area. That’s pretty mega control.

]]> By: What I’ve been doing with my week…. « LudditeJourno http://www.newswire.co.nz/2008/11/national-muzzles/comment-page-1/#comment-609 What I’ve been doing with my week…. « LudditeJourno Fri, 07 Nov 2008 08:22:11 +0000 http://www.newswire.co.nz/?p=1586#comment-609 [...] favourite experience of the week?  National Party press secretary Jason Ede saying to me: “Clearly you haven’t followed politics very much, have you, Sandra?” when I called him to [...] [...] favourite experience of the week?  National Party press secretary Jason Ede saying to me: “Clearly you haven’t followed politics very much, have you, Sandra?” when I called him to [...]

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