April 14th, 2008
Revealed: Turnbull keeps newmatilda.com staff on ‘limited profile’
Following my post on Friday about the parties’ waning use of online media post-election, in which I remarked that I suspected Malcolm Turnbull (one of the most prolific users of online media in Parliament) had me on ‘limited profile’ on Facebook*, I received the following email from a Liberal Party source:
“Malcolm would have been able to tell straight away that you’re a writer and left-leaning! I don’t think there are many journos on his list at all because he wants people to be able to ask whatever they want, and for it to be natural. Well, as natural as Facebook ever can be.”
So, there you go. Mock offense aside, it raises some interesting questions: if both politics and the internet are part of the public sphere, is anything that transpires off them ever really off the public record? (One
* I added Turnbull and other Federal politicians to my Facebook friends list when I was covering the online campaign for The Age last year.
Tags: malcolm turnbull , online media
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Sites like this one, where journalists are treated like public figures.
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Certainly, I can understand why a public figure would do it — I’m just wondering why a journalist ought to care! For the record (haha) I’m not in favour of a lot of the niceties of this “off the record” stuff in regard to the powerful people of our time. It gives them too much cover and eliminates the transparency that should be the hallmark of political journalism.
Nick - My impression is that email (and all online behaviour, for that matter) is increasingly assumed to be on the public record unless otherwise stated - or, in some cases, even *when* otherwise stated. The disclaimer is a way of reversing that dynamic, so that nothing is on the public record unless otherwise stated. It might seem overly paranoid, but probably necessary in the NYC media world, with sites like Gawker and so on.
Hopefully not to sidetrack the main issue here, but I was intrigued by the anecdote about your correspondent’s disclaimer: surely whether a communication is off the record or not must be negotiated in advance? Not wanly appended to some email arriving out of the blue?
“It is something that it is very easy for the media to deliberately and mischievously take out of context” - Marcus
Marcus I think this is already happening at least in Turnbulls case here
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22070464-2,00.html
Thats why I think its ok for pollies to reject journos if at the very least they are using social networks for a genuine dialogue.
That’s interesting. At least he will let you befriend him!
I wrote a piece for crikey last year about the confused status of Kevin Rudd’s facebook profile (no one in Kev’s office was sure who was behind it at the time) and tried to befriend Malcolm on the Facebooks. I actually tried about three times and he flat out denied my attempts to befirend him.
The interesting thing is that like my other FB friends Bob Brown, Natasha Stott-Despoja (but unlike K-Rudd and Andrew Bartlett who i have also befriended) i have actually crossed paths with Malcolm in real life (back in his Republican movement days) and was actually quite impressed by the guy. It certainly was with genuine curiosity rather than any conspiratorial intent that i was befriending him.
I wonder how and to what extent they vet (google?) everyone who applies for friendship and where they draw the line. Or maybe i am just on a personal Malcolm Turnbull watch list?
There’s a larger question that’s kind of interesting here. What is the status of a facebook profile? It is something that it is very easy for the media to deliberately and mischievously take out of context. Personally, I see it as kind of like a potentially rowdy public meeting. Where the pollie hosting it is speaking to a crowd s/he is not responsible for and can’t control and therefore comments left by others need to be taken in that context. But the flip side of that is they have a responsibility to counter problmetic views that are expressed to make it clear that they aren’t endorsing them by by being in the forum. It’s a fine line.
I also befriended my local member (Lindsay Tanner - who i don’t think I’ve met personally) and decided to experiment with raising a (genuine!) constituent issue via a facebook message. His office was on the phone within a couple of days to chase the issue up. In part I was testing whether it was just an ad or a communication channel and they seem to have passed there.
It will be interesting to see how these things play out.
I think its more on the side of smart. If he is using it to genuinley communicate with people then last thing anyone wants is for every second post to end up in the press. Do we expect politicians to release all their emails from consituents too ?
It would be interesting to see if any other pollies had you on limited profile ?
great article btw Rachel
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