D-Day for Democracy in Leeds
Richard Horsman (@LeedsJourno) has some thoughts about the Leeds Webcasting decision facing the council tomorrow …
Tomorrow Leeds City Council has the opportunity to drag accountability and open decision making kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.
They’ll be discussing an experiment which saw May’s full council meeting webcast live over the internet. That trial broadcast attracted some 588 live views on the day, and as this report up for discussion on Tuesday states, the recording has been accessed a further 454 times since then.
As I’ve commented on my own website, such viewing figures are never going to compare with Saturday night TV; but they do show significant public interest in the workings of the authority. There was also little or no publicity ahead of the trial broadcast, which was always intended as a pilot project.
Full council meetings are somewhat theatrical occasions; very rarely will the result of a vote surprise anyone, as all the hard work of decision making has been done in the deals and compromises worked out before the set piece meeting takes place.
I take my Postgraduate news trainees from Leeds Trinity down to watch the budget set each year, as it’s probably the nearest a local government meeting comes to Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons.
Party leaders and other extrovert Members use the opportunity to show off, make political points and build their profile ahead of the next round of elections. It may well be the am dram version of the Westminster stage, but it’s still an eye opener for my lot who, almost without exception, have never seen anything like it before.
If webcasting decision making is to be of real value the all-seeing eye of the webcam needs to move from the splendour of the debating chamber to the less glamorous rooms where the nitty-gritty of council business is done, the Planning Panels that determine the physical shape of our city and (especially) the Scrutiny Committees where officers and office-holders are held to account for their actions.
I’m not such an idealist as to believe everything can be webcast. There will always be a place for off-the-record meetings where participants can speak frankly without fear of the public relations consequences. Denying such opportunities would deny our representatives the chance to be fully and accurately briefed on issues of huge importance. But any meeting that would admit the public at the Civic Hall should, as a matter of course, admit the camera.
Now this is where it gets really interesting. Readers of the Leeds Citizen website will already be aware, but other Leeds Twitterati and social media enthusiasts may be amazed to find that their comments are already being monitored and taken seriously in the corridors of power.
Point 3.6 of the report states:
The webcast did lead to significant interest and discussion on Twitter and Facebook, where contributors generally welcomed the initiative and suggested that it should be a regular feature with some requests that it should cover more of the decision making meetings.
An important issue still to be resolved is that of rebroadcasting content from the Council webcasts in other media. The copyright in the material resides with Leeds City Council. But it’s a real waste of resource and potential if the recordings just sit in a corner of the leeds.gov.uk website.
If Members are to unlock the full potential of their initiative in opening up democracy they should licence the content to the public service, commercial and community radio stations in the city. They should make it available to the new Made in Leeds local TV channel launching in November. And they should make it available to online commentators such as the Leeds Citizen, Culture Vulture, The City Talking and the multitude of hyperlocal sites (Leeds Northern, South Leeds Life) that can carry the discussion to a new level.
Councillors (and their officers) are a bit queasy about this. The report’s authors express caution under the heading ‘Risk Management’ at point 4.6.3:
There could be risks associated with the public perception and media response to the webcasts but this is likely to be outweighed by improved public access and awareness, and greater transparency of decision making.
Indeed so, and any qualms could be eased by users signing a ‘fair use’ protocol, simpler than but similar to that that which applies to the broadcast use of audio and video from Parliament.
In essence this would prohibit ‘time shifting’ events into the wrong order, or editing speeches in a way that would distort the meaning of what is said, or which is designed to make a Member look foolish (If a Member does actually say something foolish there would be nothing in the rules to prevent a fair and accurate clip of such statements being broadcast).
So, maybe not tomorrow bur soon, our elected members have an important decision to make.
From the tone of the report it appears likely approval will be given tomorrow for future webcasts. That’s fine as far as it goes.
But are our representatives ready to go further than that, to submit to greater scrutiny, greater engagement and a more open form of democracy in which their words and decisions are broadcast and discussed in both old and new media, or are they content to stick with televising the set piece performance?
For now the only way to find out is to go and sit in the Committee Room. If you can find it.
Richard, you are totally right to point out that webcasting the meetings is not the whole solution, and that local interpretation, amplification and debate-stimulation is vital as I said here http://www.thejournalismfoundation.com/2012/03/the-hyperlocal-jeremy-paxmans-are-out-there-we-just-need-to-find-them/.
I also still fail to understand why people always think video is the only option. Audio streaming is easier and cheaper to do, and would allow more meetings in more locations to be covered, and also, it is more user-friendly to people on low bandwidth connections and on smartphones.
Great article, John.
I don’t need persuading about the merits of audio but I suspect the expectation of web users now is that there will be pictures with this project. Apart from anything else it could be difficult to identify who is speaking or what’s going on during votes in an audio feed without a commentator/moderator.
Now a live Twitter feed on the wall behind Members; that I can see as a valuable innovation.
It’s somewhat depressing that the question even needs to be asked in 2013. The figures are just good, they are extremely impressive when you consider how few people ever sit in the public gallery.
The copyright issue could be solved by a Creative Commons attribution no-derivatives licence enabling media, bloggers etc to use the content, but not change it.
Cheers, Stuart, for pointing out there’s a simple answer to the copyright issue. I’m guilty of thinking in ‘old media’ terms when permissions had to be specific to a limited number of named broadcasters.
Very positive that the council is looking at this – they’ve already been doing it for years in places like Cardiff so it’s good we’re catching up.
I’m all for opening up of democracy, but I’m not sure only screening the pantomime of full council is the answer(and it does tend to go on for anything up to six hours!. Executive board is where the real decision-making takes place. And plans. Let’s get those opened up to the public too.
Not sure about audio though, John P – how would you know who’s speaking?
Never mind the blogs (who reads ’em?), I’d have thought that the main way most citizens will benefit from this is that the YEP and YP – the only comprehensive reporters of news about the Corporation – won’t have to tie a reporter up by sending her down to meetings at the Civic Hall.
Instead she can be getting on with other stuff in the newsroom while keeping an eye on the webcast, turning round stories that crop up, and nicking video for the web on the rare occasion there’s any of interest.
That should mean more civic stories for us and greater productivity for the papers. Bargain!
Agree with John about Executive and planning (and scrutiny too, since they’re all held in the same room).
Beyond the theatrical aspects I’d like to see a reduction in rudeness, it really turns me off politicians. I had the misfortune of bumping into a Cllr recently outside the civic Hall, who unprompted started calling a fellow female member ‘Gollum’.
I witnessed disrespect whilst watching the live webcast, and whilst I don’t mind jocular/vaudeville behavior as a traditional thing, I would like to see our members showing some leadership and self awareness if they are to be role models in society.
The danger for them of these live webcasts is that they may have to ‘behave’ in public. Let’s hope they consider that they should be doing the same in private and behind closed doors too
Gollum? That’s terrible. Bang out of order.
Everyone knows her proper name’s Smeagol … 😉