As I’ve blogged at The Guardian today, Tameside Council has started an ‘accreditation’ system for professional journalists who apply to tweet from council meetings.
In the interests of transparency, the full text of the questions I asked and the council’s reply are posted below;
Inquiry to the council first submitted March 1;
I’m looking at how journalists are using Twitter to cover council meetings and am told that you don’t allow this at present. I’d be grateful if you’d give me a little further information on this;
- First, and most importantly, is it true that the council has banned the use of Twitter during council meetings?
If so,
- Is this for journalists? Councillors? Members of the public?
- Does the restriction only apply to Twitter – i.e. can other forms of instant messaging, micro-blogging still be used.
- What’s the reason for the ban and on what grounds is it made?
- What steps will be taken to enforce the ban?
The reply from the council sent on March 5:
The Council does not have a specific policy concerning twitter at its meetings but follows the legislation governing the conduct of Council meetings and in particular the recording and transmitting of meetings which are set out in Section 100 (A)(7) of the Local Government Act 1972. Below is a link to relevant part of 1972 Act:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1972/cukpga_19720070_en_14#v00132-pt6-l1g102
Under the 1972 Act there is no right to attend a council meeting and make a transmission of the meeting whilst it is taking place, or to make recordings of any meeting, this applies to all Local Authorities. Therefore the Council is obliged to consider specific requests to use media such as ‘twitter’. Following requests the Council has authorised the Manchester Evening News, Tameside Advertiser and Tameside Reporter to use twitter in each of the Council meetings they have requested to do so, as duly accredited representatives of the press, as defined in the Local Government Act 1972. Examples of the ‘twitter’ which has taken place at Tameside Council meetings are at the following links:
http://www.tamesideadvertiser.co.uk/news/s/1193501_council_tax_to_go_up_by_over_2_per_centhttp://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1186956_council_meetings__our_online_archive
As you can see the Council allows the use of ‘twitter’ during Council meetings by duly accredited representatives of the press as part of its commitment to increasing involvement in the democratic process. Given that the Council does allow duly accredited representatives of the press to use twitter to cover Council meetings I have not addressed your further questions which are based on the assumption that the Council has banned the use of ‘twitter’.
I’d be interested to hear if any other bloggers have encountered similar issues with access to public meetings.
Dim Sum Digital 
Hi Sarah. I can’t really see the harm in someone quieting tapping onto their iphone about what’s been said at a council meeting. There are lots of good examples of it happening – @jason_cobb in Lambeth is one such person. There seems no good reason to stop someone tweeting, unless it’s stopping them playing an active part in the meeting they are there to attend, which, as a member of the public you aren’t. You’re just there to observe.
One other thing I’d like to say though. I think the MEN deserves a lot of credit for putting the resources into liveblogging a lot of Greater Manchester council meetings, so it seemed a bit unfair that the only reference which was made to them in your Guardian piece was inside a quote which asked what if they were cut back council reporting. Given your study on newspaper council coverage has demonstrated papers which don’t cover councils at all, the MEN’s live tweeting of meetings seems to jump out a bit of a paper doing morer than most.
A similar question could be asked of bloggers who wish to tweet at meetings – surely with work commitments etc they may not be able to tweet at meetings as often as they would like, all of which reinforces the point that anyone should be allowed to tweet. But that’s just my opinion.
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Hi David, like you, I can’t see the problem with phones being on silent and being used to tweet at all.
The point of my questions, and the subsequent post on The Guardian, was to look at the treatment of local bloggers rather than to make comment on the quality or otherwise of the local papers coverage.
My interest in this area comes from the point of bloggers’ access – which is something I think all of us professional journalists can and should assist with, rather than taking a ‘we’re alright jack’ attitude just because our own position is secured.
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I’m not sure I was expressing an ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude – but I think with issues like this we need to treat the work of newspapers and bloggers in the same sphere, or else we’re just pandering to the organisations which seek to treat them differently.
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I did, of course, mean ‘quietly tapping’
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Hi David, I’ve replied here to your point above as wordpress oddly didn’t offer a reply button on your coment?. Anyhow, I couldn’t agree more!
btw, I don’t think you were expressing that attitutde, but I’m afraid the local papers have done very little to address the situation – back in Feb it was mentioned in a live blog that TamesideEye had been banned but no action was taken – and there’s been no comments on the situation since.
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Does tweeting really allow people to ‘to see or hear any proceedings’ or even count as an ‘oral report’.
Seems to me that it shouldn’t apply at all.
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I’d say the council is acting _ultra vires_. A personal note of the meeting, however and whenever published, is not a “transmission” of that meeting. It is certainly not, “the use of any means to enable persons not present to see or hear any proceedings (whether at the time or later), or the making of any oral report on any proceedings as they take place” which councils may expressly exclude.
The council has a *duty* to afford facilities to accredited members of the press to attend when it is open to the public. That does not mean it is entitled to exclude members of the public who are not members of the press and not disrupting proceedings when it is open to the public. Nor does it mean it is entitled to prevent reporting of any non-confidential proceedings by any means by those not accredited.
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Thanks Guy, I am looking into this further. Should I take it from your thoughtful reply that you have some experience in this field?
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I have a lot of experience of officialdom obtusely misinterpreting legislation in order to get its arbitrary way, so I know how to spot what they are doing when they do it.
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Cardiff Council webcast their full council meetings in full, so certainly for these I can’t see any reason for banning tweeting.
I’ve tweeted from full council meetings and not had a problem, and a couple of councillors have also been tweeting during the meetings as well. I try to limit the amount of tweets being written during the meeting to keep to key points – especially as the live webcast is available, so pointless to tweet everything and anything.
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Hi Ed,
I work with our Guardian beatblogger (Hannah Waldram) in Cardiff so am familiar with what happens in the council there and it certainly does seem to be a shining example of a local authority being open in its proceedings. Long may it continue! I look forward to following your tweets in the future.
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Hello Sarah,
IANAL, but it seems to me that Thameside, and other councils who are jumping on the bandwagon, have stepped outside the law they are relying upon. The section they quote states:
“(7)Nothing in this section shall require a principal council to permit the taking of photographs of any proceedings, or the use of any means to enable persons not present to see or hear any proceedings (whether at the time or later), or the making of any oral report on any proceedings as they take place.”
Tweeting is neither photography, nor does it enable seeing or hearing of the proceedings (since a tweet has no visual or audible content), nor an oral report.
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Thanks for the comment 🙂
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Hi Sarah,
Typical of Tameside to quote old laws to prevent enything that smacks of progress. They recently prevented me from launching a Totally ‘Green’ Emissions -free, fun-approach’ towards transportation, Marketing & Self Employment in the borough, by quoting a trafic law; Section 38 of the Town Police Act of 1847 which defined my proposal to introduce pedal powered tricycles, as Hackney Carriages and as such would, should I pursue this business venture, face litigation. This venture would also have taken 35 people off the jobseekers list.
The words logical and common sense do not have a place in the councils lexicon.
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