A daily newspaper has exposed a local councillor who used its website to post comments praising his own work.

Ben Grower, one of three Labour members on Bournemouth Borough Council, took the alias ‘Omegaman’ to comment on the Daily Echo’s website about stories in which he was mentioned or involved.

Under one story he praised himself and a fellow councillor for being “concerned about this mess”, referring to an overdue and over-budget surf reef project.

Below another he gave himself a “well done” for caring about local residents who were concerned about the expansion of a dentist’s surgery.

Omegaman is registered to an e-mail address containing Coun Grower’s name but this is not shown to readers.

When the Echo contacted Coun Grower, he suggested several people had access to his computer.

“It could be anybody. It could be me, it could be Santa Claus,” he told the Newsquest daily.

He later added: “I have done nothing against the law. And probably next time I will just use a different pseudonym.”

Coun Grower said the comments were only fun and claimed other councillors did the same thing.

One poster wrote under the story exposing Coun Grower: “I always thought omegaman was an idiot. Turns out he is!”

The story has garnered a large amount of media attention with both UK national newspapers and Australian dailies The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald reporting it.

Website editor Nick Rowe said: “The Echo does respect its readers’ right to anonymity but we felt that when a councillor pretends to be somebody else to improve his reputation, that it is of sufficient public interest to tell people about it.”

Comments

Michael Eckhardt (16/01/2009 10:15:20)
Well done to this minister for having the guts to own up when he is clearly exposed as a self-conglatulatory twit.

James Blackman (16/01/2009 10:47:04)
LOL. Oh no – how embarrasing!

Nick Rowe (16/01/2009 13:03:09)
I think Nick Rowe is clearly a brilliant website editor, and deserves a pay rise.

Rob (16/01/2009 13:57:04)
It’s just the technology that changes. The Evening Post in Swansea discovered a disgraced councillor had been sending in letters using false names and addresses for years.

Stop Press (16/01/2009 15:22:57)
…and in other news, it has been discovered bears do in fact crap in woods, money does not grow on trees and the Pope is a catholic.
Politicians have been doing this for years with various alter-egos.

John (17/01/2009 12:18:53)
Witty indeed…

Ben Grower (17/01/2009 19:03:34)
I think Ben Grower is the best councillor in Bournemouth, and possibly the entire world. Grower for Prime Minister…

Golam Murtaza (19/01/2009 08:38:01)
Eh???

Golam Murtaza (19/01/2009 09:20:47)
Ah, that weird post I was responding to has been removed. I wonder what all that was about?
Anyway, back to the relevant subject of this thread – I often wonder whether some of the councillors in my own news patch abuse the comments section on our website. It wouldn’t surprise me.