What would happen if your Governor — not the press secretary but the Governor — suddenly blocked specific journalists from attending press conferences?
In a perfect world, newspaper editors and TV station news managers would tell the Governor that he didn’t get to decide who reports on the business of the state.
Down in Texas, we have a one-step-removed situation that illustrates one challenge of our 24x7, always on, 21st century life: negotiating the dividing line between public and private life, especially when you are an elected official.
On Monday, Dallas Morning News reporter @TomBenning told the world, on a DallasNews.com blog, that when he tried to follow @GovernorPerry, he encountered this message:
Could not follow user: You have been blocked from following this account at the request of the user.
If you think of public tweets as being, well, official statements from the Governor, then you are probably aghast that Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) [@GovernorPerry] is blocking journalists to keep them from following his tweets on his “personal” Twitter account. The one with more than 37,000 followers that he opened on January 01, 2009. The official account (@TexGov, opened on January 21, 2009) has less than 6,000 followers and is a push account for the press office, based on its level (or lack thereof) of interactivity.
@Replies For @GovernorPerry
Set aside for the moment the futility of blocking access to a public account.
Rick Perry lives in the public light. His account is officially “personal” but in actuality it is anything but personal: his @ replies account for less than 4 percent of his total tweetstream; an “@ reply” is direct conversational interaction with another Twitter account. In other words, Perry uses @GovernorPerry as a megaphone, not a telephone.
Tweet Stats For @GovernorPerry, Feb 2011
Don’t get me wrong. I believe that Twitter can be an effective tool, whether it’s being used to develop relationships and cultivate conversation or whether it’s being used as a broadcast tool. But I don’t characterize “broadcast” as “personal.”
Moreover, in recent months, Perry tweets on average less than once a day. His peak usage was March 2009, when he averaged four tweets/day. So it’s not like he’s saying much with his megaphone.
Clearly, Governor Perry’s press secretary thought about these issues before answering Benning’s email inquiry (emphasis added):
Yes, it is the governor’s personal account, so he manages it as he likes. He uses non-state resources.
Interface Used To Tweet By @GovernorPerry
If Governor Perry used state resources, his legal position would be clear: no blockage of journalists allowed.
What’s not clear is the accuracy of that statement, given that TweetStats shows that most of the tweets from @GovernorPerry are not made on a Blackberry (possibly a personal device) but are made from Twitter’s web interface. Web interface means computer, not a mobile browser.
Moreover, an analysis of a random selection of tweets from 2011 shows that several were made during normal business hours and days. Does the Governor really have two computers at his desk? Or regularly work from home?
Regardless, Perry’s account blocking is little more than a speedbump.
Regardless, Perry’s account blocking is more more than a speedbump.
Any reporter (or progressive blocker) who wants to know what Perry is saying on his public “personal” account can do so by subscribing to the RSS feed of the account.
And should you not use an RSS reader regularly, Benning reports that TCU journalism instructor Andrew Chavez (@adchavez) created a Google Docs application (bit.ly/guvtweets) to have those tweets delivered via email.
Finally, this is not the first time that Perry has prevented those who write about him from actively following his account. Last year, the Statesman reported that Katherine Haenschen, who writes for Burnt Orange Report, keeps a Twitter list of Texans blocked by @GovernorPerry.
Your feelings on the candidate Perry’s blockage of “progressive bloggers” may be less cut-and-dried, but the question raised then is the same as today: what is the line between “public” and “private” life for an elected public official in an always on world.
Tools Used In This Story
You must log in to post a comment.