PilotOnline has an interesting story up. Seems the city of Suffolk won’t add a Suffolk blog to its press distribution list. The blog in question, Inside Suffolk Virginia, has been critical of the city. The response to Its request to be included can be found in this post:
Mr. Panagopulos,
As indicated in our earlier conversation, I am declining to add you to our media
release distribution list. As part of our Communications Plan, we will soon be posting our media releases on the City of Suffolk website so that they will be
readily accessible by you and other interested citizens. Thank you for your
inquiry.Debbie George
Director – Media and Community Relations
Oh, OK. They are going to put them on the website. Hopefully, they will add an RSS feed, like Norfolk has, so that anyone can subscribe to the feed (like the one in my sidebar). In the meantime, what’s the harm in adding them to the list?
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
The harm? That would be a diminished sense of power on Debbie George’s part. Couldn’t have that.
Hey, Debbie, here’s a free lesson in media and community relations: don’t be an ignorant twit when it gains you nothing, and costs you the scorn of people with a voice.
Perhaps Suffolk is happy with the wonderful stories the Pilot writes about them.
MB, you and I agree completely on this.
The Chesapeake courts have been denying me access to public records recently. I’ve enlisted help getting the info I need through a surrogate, but if she can get these records using the same processes as I am, while I’m being denied, it’s an issue I’m going to have to push.
The story has been updated a bit this morning. (Same link as above.) Seems the other cities have no problems adding bloggers if they want to be on the list. MB & Rick – I’m with you on this. Nothing but a power play.
There’s sixteen different kinds of wrong with this, and the fact that the guy happens to be a blogger is the very least of my concerns. I can’t think of a single public relations or press secretary I know who would object to a private citizen receiving their press releases; most of them sit around after work bitching and moaning over their beers about how 99% of their releases never get even the most cursory mention in the media and thus go completely unnoticed by the public at large. This isn’t a blogs vs. mainstream media issue or a blogs vs government issue; this is a stupid vs non-stupid issue. Debbie George should find a new career better-suited to her personality and skill set, as she’s doing her current client–the city of Suffolk–a grave disservice through her malpractice.
This is the sort of arrogant territorial protectionism that historically bites bureaucrats in the ass in Virginia. One example that leaps to mind is the case that led to the liberalization of homeschooling laws here.
There was a family that was using a technique known as unschooling, and using the public library on a regular basis for its resources. A busybody librarian thought she knew how those kids should be taught better than the family did, so she tried to exercise the authority she thought she had, by prohibiting minors from being in the library during school hours, even with a parent. When this family informed her that what they were doing there was in fact school, she invoked the “home” portion of “homeschooling” as a literal definition that it is supposed to be done in the home, and not in the library.
The ruling in the lawsuit that resulted determined that the parent is the sovereign over the child, and just devastated the various regulations that different localities around the state arbitrarily imposed on home education. As a result, local school districts retain only the power to demand that parents notify them of their intent, and report annul test results to prove academic progress. And even though they retain the power to make these demands, they have had a really rough time enforcing these demands in court, when parents decide not to comply.
The government lost all of this power because of a snooty librarian.
Ever heard of the Freedom of Information Act? Maybe the blogger needs to request these press releases, one by one, until the Suffolk city gov’t figures out that it’s easier to just hand them over at the outset.
As for the press releases being on a website, okay, but is it so hard to just add someone to an e-mail list?
anon – sorry – your comment got hung up in the spam filter (again)
Well, Portsmouth won’t send them to me. I get them at work but, of course, I keep work and blogging separate.
See: http://scottsmb.com/2008/07/21/the-new-media-apparently-isnt-in-suffolk-and-portsmouth-virginia/
I am stunned by the clueless response from Suffolk’s Director of Media Relations. Where to begin with that? First, she does not believe blogs are media outlets? Wow! Kudos to the City of Suffolk for traveling all the way to the 20th Century to find a new director. Second, her claim that if she added one blogger, she would have to add them all. Obviously she has not mastered that new fangled technology…email!