John’s Idea

The “Daily Mail” test is often used by people working in the public sector as a surrogate for public opinion.  If you want to warn someone about the reputational consequences of doing something you say “what would the Daily Mail make of it”. 

More powerful than any regulator, the Daily Mail can line national politicians of all parties in a national campaign on issues which in any sane world would be left to local decision making and discretion.

Last week’s demonstration of the new campaigning power of social media was particularly interesting because it was the number one arbitrator of public opinion which got brought to heel.   Jan Moir’s article on the death of Boyzone Stephen Gateley offended millions including those like me who hadn’t even read it (nice echoes of the Mail campaign against the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross show). The resulting Twitter explosion and advertiser pressure had the paper reaching for its reverse gear.

Just as interesting was the collapse of the extraordinary efforts Trafigura was making to block reporting of its report on the dumping of waste in the Ivory Coast.  This extended to gagging the fact that the Guardian had been gagged  and attempting to prevent parliamentary reporters revealing the fact that this gagging order had been discussed in parliament. Such crude attempts to stifle discussion are hard to maintain in “twitterverse” and once the Guardian revealed the fact that it hadn’t been able to report on parliamentary proceedings the explosion through social media had Trafigura’s advisors, like the Daily Mail, reaching for their reverse gear.

Finding real rather than surrogate measures of public opinion has always been central to what good local government tries to do and the best are already using the latest Web 2 techniques to achieve this.  The response to the Jan Moir article and the collapse of Trafigura’s attempt to stifle reporting should provide further encouragement as to what can achieved.