Friday, October 17, 2008

It's the law wot done it

Well that was the resaon I was just given for the Irish 'No' vote. I was on a panel of Political Group press officers for the European Youth Media Days, a three day jamoboree of propaganda.

With me on the platform was Bob Fitzhenry the genial EPP/ED Head of Press.

He said - and I paraphrase,
'The reason why there was a 'No' vote in Ireland was the law. You see the Irish constitution demands that in the event of a referendum both sides get equal media coverage. If I send out a press release the journalist cannot use it, unless they contact somebody from the other side. When almost all political parties support the Yes side then they should necessarily get most of the media coverage'.

Ye Gods!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sure... I'm sure that was also the reason for the rejection of the Constitution in The Netherlands and France too...

But in all seriousness, in our capitalist system advertising is largely what determines the success of goods, services, and even political messages.

Especially when it comes to political messages that are often fuzzy and not clear-cut advertising can play a decisive role (after all not many in Ireland knew much about the Lisbon Treaty).

So did the Lisbon Treaty fail because of the No campaigning? If it did, it was only the fault of the European powers that didn't think it's important enough to run a significant Yes campaign.

And no, this wouldn't be propaganda, but an information campaign with a positive spin (oops...)

Gawain Towler said...

True true, it is important that everybody is aware how the European Union has saved thousands of babies and is responsible for sunshine and warm water.

Anonymous said...

this is really nice reason

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