The Jane Sterk dilemma: does social media matter to BC’s politicians?
Friday, May 8th, 2009
Ever wondered what a social media maelstrom looks like? We imagine it looks a lot like Twitter did at around 1:56pm on May 7th, 2009 when it was discovered that Jane Sterk, Leader of the BC Green Party, had responded to questions posed by prominent Vancouver blogger, Rebecca Bollwitt (Miss 604), with copy-and-paste excerpts from the British Columbia Green Book—on the threshold of a provincial election.
Sterk’s canned response arrived on the heels of the efforts by other local politicians to reach out to local bloggers.
Leading the charge, current Premier Gordon Campbell, of the Liberal Party, sent a tweet on April 27th offering to write a guest blog for five BC bloggers in which he would answer three of their questions. Not to be outdone, the NDP’s Carole James demonstrated her social media savvy by submitting video responses to each of Bollwitt’s questions, now accessible on Miss604.com as well as the BC New Democrat YouTube channel. To date, interviews and guest blogs by candidates from almost every party continue to pop up on several local blogs such as hummingbird604.com and 5questions.ca.
Not surprisingly, Jane Sterk’s copy-and-paste response to Bollwitt’s questions whipped up a flurry of tweets and blog comments, which worked together to highlight an issue perhaps best stated in a tweet by Raul Pacheco-Vega (Hummingbird604): “That response is NOT professional. As @dbarefoot said, if they can’t afford to give a blogger the same respect as a journalist, why do it?�
Elections have the tendency to bring simmering issues to a boil, and the issue of social media relevance is by no means cooling in the fridge. “Why do it?� is one on a long list of questions this episode has provoked concerning the debate between social and traditional media. Should politicians respond to bloggers in the same manner as they respond to journalists? Should you, as a reader, regard social media with the same relevance and weight that traditional media has enjoyed in the past?
Maybe Sterk is beginning to think so. Since her perceived social media slight she has agreed to a phone interview with Miss 604 this afternoon.
It will be curious to watch this situation unfold, and to observe whether the pages or airwaves of the traditional media outlets pick up on it.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
You can see one of the blogs Gordon Campbell posted on here – http://www.braunallison.com/blog/2009/05/premier-gordon-campbells-long-view/
May 8th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Thanks Kirsten, I have updated my post with some notes from my phone call today with Jane Sterk.
May 10th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
HI Kirsten, to set the record straight, we offered Rebecca an interview, so that she could write her own blog. But she sent over questions, instead. You can imagine that we do not have a team of blog-writers as would the liberals. I doubt very much that Gordon Campbell would ever provide access to his time directly as Jane did to Rebecca.