Editorial: No Gag Order Here

Elizabeth Flaherty, editor of scone.com.au.

FOLLOWING yesterday’s story Minutes Missing the Miff, Waid Crockett the general manager of Upper Hunter Shire Council has advised Council will no longer give any information to scone.com.au.

While this means we will no longer be able to report on things Council want the public to know, rest assured we will still report on Council, including the things they would prefer you not to know.

Most of my career has been in issues management and I once gave advice to a client who was thinking about taking the same step Mr Crockett has taken, which was “if you no longer tell the media about the good news stories it will mean your media coverage will go from 80 percent good and 20 percent bad, to simply 100 percent bad, because the media will continue to do their job with or without your help.”

We would like our readership to be assured that while our reporting may no longer offer any context or comment from Council, it is not because our door does not remain open to them.

Our priority is our readership and while we attempt to report on all sides of an issue, when organisations don’t want to be interviewed we can’t run their answers.

Waid Crockett general manager of Upper Hunter Shire Council – claims there is no gag order.

In his email Mr Crockett said he had spoken to all Council staff who were at the library committee meeting and they had all assured him they had not spoken to scone.com.au and we will continue to keep our sources protected as necessary.

Mr Crockett argued there was no “gag” order not to speak to media, instead he tried to explain in the email that the media are not allowed to talk to staff or Councillors without first asking the media unit and equally staff and Councillors are not allowed to approach the media without permission; but insists there is no “gag” order in place.

When we published the story about Council closing septic services in Scone without placing it on the public record the relationship with Council soured and it seems yesterday’s story on the minutes was the straw that broke Council’s back.

But we are heartened by Cr Abbott who was brave enough to raise the issue at the Council meeting because she clearly finds proper record keeping and transparency of process important and our job as the media is to report what happened at that meeting, without fear of retribution from Waid Crockett and if we had our time over, we will still make the same decision to run the story.

And the community can be heartened that there are still some staff and Councillors who are prepared to speak out and we will support them.

Elizabeth Flaherty
Editor of scone.com.au