Tuesday 5 April 2011

How To Guarantee…

…you never get a favourable news story printed about you in future:
The Evening Star’s Suffolk County Council reporter, Paul Geater, has today been banned from getting comment from the authority - for simply telling the truth.
Oh, wow! Was it, perhaps, an unpalatable truth..?

Yes. Yes, it was:
Simply for telling the uncomfortable truth that more than £12,000 of taxpayers’ money has been spent on paying for council chief Andrea Hill to have sessions with professional “change” guru Sol Davidson.
Whoops!
Mr Geater, who was has worked as local government correspondent for The Star since 1994 and never been banned before, was told by a senior press officer Andrew St Ledger that the county council’s press office was no longer prepared to work with him following the story about the training sessions for Mrs Hill.
Oh dear.

May I refer Suffolk County Council to a salutary lesson in how not to handle disappointment with someone else’s opinion of your work? Because trust me, it’ll only end in tears.

And they may be yours.

9 comments:

Oldrightie said...

Very EU like!

Mjolinir said...

Democracy in action - you are entitled to your opinion, so long as it agrees with me.

Mike said...

'a story about' or a report of fact?!?

Ms Hill, had you not been such a parasitic, vacuous, thieving cow this 'story' would never have been printed. So there.

It never ceases to amaze me how some claim harassment and foul play when the truth is displayed in front of them and/or the world to see. On the flip side how people can get away with making up wild allegations and stories only to be reprinted in '', the defence being, we only printed what someone else said.

Mike said...

anyone linking the word guru with their profession is either a geek or unhinged IMO.

PT said...

Censorship in action. Publish only what Big Brother says, or what is favourable to Big Brother, or else.
Suffolk CC is obviously trying to corrupt the function of a free press in a democratic society.
Oops, my mistake. There's me using the D-word, which seems not to be applicable to a local authority that clearly would prefer to be entirely unaccountable to the public over which it rules. There's no doubt though that this Authority is awash with money, paying for things like this.
Glad I don't live there.

PT Barnum said...

That linked 'debate' between the reviewer and the author is one of the funniest things I've read in years. Never have I witnessed a better exemplar of the hole/stop digging syndrome! Thank you most kindly.

Clarissa said...

That link is just a scream. Cheered me up no end.

Brian said...

So Suffolk CC have a senior press officer to manage a press officer? Suffolk CC? Are they both "frontline"?

JuliaM said...

"Very EU like!"

They're learning from the best, aren't they?

"It never ceases to amaze me how some claim harassment and foul play when the truth is displayed in front of them..."

She certainly dug that hole with her own mouth, didn't she?

"Suffolk CC is obviously trying to corrupt the function of a free press in a democratic society."

Exactly. Not sure why this isn't a bigger story. Why are the big papers not making more of it?