Louise Mensch, the media and Twitter

4 Replies

Last night, amidst the flurry of tweets about Jeremy Hunt and the revelations at the Leveson inquiry, Louise Mensch MP engaged in the following exchange:

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No, she would not be appearing before the media to comment as it would be inappropriate given her role on the Select Committee. However, shortly before stating that she would not be doing any media, she tweeted:

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This seems ludicrous at best and rather suggests, once more, that many simply do not ‘get’ Twitter. It makes no sense to argue that you will not appear before the television media to comment, in front of an audience in the low millions, but feel free to comment publicly on a medium that reaches hundreds of millions instantly. Twitter, indeed any online social media, is part of the media landscape.

So yes, she might not have appeared on Newsnight et al, but she has certainly made her views on this matter very public (which is ill-advised in any case given the circumstances). Twitter is not a private network. Publish your comments on there, and you might as well ring up a journalist or sit in a studio. It is, after all, social media.

UPDATE

I should add that Louise Mensch has argued that her tweets have been mis-interpreted.  Maybe so, but it is still difficult to understand why a Select Committee member is prepared to publicly declare that Jeremy Hunt has not behaved improperly.

Ian Clark

A qualified librarian and co-founder of a leading national library advocacy campaign, I have written articles for The Guardian and the Open Rights Group on a range of professional issues.

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  • Liam Murray

    I think you’re missing her point. She didn’t say she wasn’t going to comment publicly, she said she wasn’t going to “do media”. So while you’re right to point out that Twitter is ‘media’ in one very obvious and basic way, it’s still materially different from an extended conversation on broadcast media where she’d presumably be interrogated & challenged on different aspects of her position & the select committees deliberations.

    • http://infoism.co.uk/blog Ian

      I’m sorry, I really do not think this entire situation is one where Committee members should comment publicly at all. On any aspect of the revelations. In my view, she and other Committee members should not be commenting on the innocence or otherwise of anyone involved in this process. Which means no specific comment (such as that above) on any form of media.

      • Liam Murray

        Agree entirely but that wasn’t the thrust of your original post. It suggested a contradiction between two things Louise said where no such contradiction existed.

        • http://infoism.co.uk/blog Ian

          I see where you are coming from but still not wholly convinced. She’s certainly been engaged in an extended discussion with Sunny Hundal on Twitter this morning where she has been challenged and interrogated.