Jo's watery sell-out

Jo Gilbertson, head of PR at the IWA, has written a piece for the Liberal Democrat Voice blog, and he's headlined it Gordon's watery sell-off. 

It's under his personal byline, so at first I assumed that this meant he was a card-carrying Liberal Democrat, and that the IWA was allying itself with the party.

Only on a later visit did I see the website's disclaimer: 

Views expressed on this website are those of the individuals who express them and may not reflect those of the party.

Maybe the IWA still claims to be independent, but I think it is a mistake for Jo to 'go personal' like this.  Never mind the discreet disclaimer, it still looks like a sell-out;  in my mind it brands him and the IWA as partisan, as tools of a political party.

It didn't help that he's used tags  such as 'family silver' and 'sell-off'.  Such loaded terms can only appeal to prejudice, not reason.   I try not to be beholden to any party, and I'm unhappy to belong to an organisation that is.

If you don't believe that it conveys Liberal Democrat partinsanship, try googling for 'gordon's watery sell-off' and you'll see the words 'Liberal Democrat Voice' appear in most of the Google search snippets that result.

Of course, he probably went this way because he wanted to follow the audience.  But that's just a symptom of the IWA website not having its own audience. 

What the IWA should really do - I've been saying this for six years - is have their own blog and using this and other tools of 'social media' just plug away to gradually build a following. 

To start with, they could take a leaf out of the Save Our Waterways website, which integrates blogs almost seamlessly into the site.  SOW has evolved into a textbook way of publishing waterways news, and I like that every time it publishes something it reaches my iPhone, and thus my eyes. 

Even if I don't agree with it, I know that I'm getting SOW's independent point of view.

Comments

[Sarah]

Just because you can make common cause with a party on an issue, doesn't make you beholden to them. It sounds sensible to me, getting the message out to a wider audience, and forging links with the one party that might actually oppose the policy and stand up for public ownership. That doesn't mean they have to compromise their independence or agree with the party on anything else.

[Allan]

I can't remember seeing any LibDems at the Waterways funding debate last Monday night.

Why not?

Come to think about it, I did not see any opposition present!