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Cameron says sorry to regional daily over campaign visit treatment

David Cameron has apologised to a regional daily whose journalists had accused his entourage of treating them with “disdain,” after finally agreeing to a ten-minute interview with the paper.

As reported on HTFP earlier this month, Huddersfield Daily Examiner local government reporter Joanne Douglas was held in a room with other regional journalists for over an hour before being given just one minute with the PM, while photographer Andrew Catchpool was prevented from taking a picture of Mr Cameron during a factory tour.

However during a second campaign visit to the area yesterday, Mr Cameron said sorry for the past incident and gave Joanne a ten-minute sit-down interview, pictured below.

The PM blamed the previous episode, which led to accusations that the regional press was being ignored in the campaign, on an “administrative muck-up.”

David Cameron visit to Dean Clough Halifax on the electoral campaign.

Mr Cameron told Joanne: “I think there was an administrative muck up that’s our fault. My apologies and it won’t happen again.

“I always want to try and give local journalists a fair chance to ask questions and see what we’re up to.”

Andrew Hirst, head of content at the Examiner, said: “We’re grateful Mr Cameron made the time to talk to Joanne this time and the interview covered both local and national issues.

“These political visits are surely all about getting a message across to local voters so the last place the press officers need journalists to be is stuck away in a room.

“It’s my understanding they have learned from what happened to us before and both local and regional media are now getting better access to high profile Conservative figures.”

Other local newspapers to have criticised the Tory Party over their treatment at visits by Mr Cameron during the General Election campaign include the Nottingham Post and The Yorkshire Post.

The Milton Keynes Citizen has also previously attacked a “Big Brother-style” media accreditation policy announced by the Conservatives prior to the campaign.

However, in an interview with the Teesside Gazette last week, Mr Cameron gave his opinion on six issues raised in a readers’ manifesto.

20 comments

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  • April 22, 2015 at 11:02 am
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    looks like Joanna ( or whoever is in the picture) is giving the oily one a real tough time. Hmm.
    Cameron only said sorry because he is scared stiff of losing votes to Labour. I don’t think his heart bleeds for local hacks.

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  • April 22, 2015 at 12:33 pm
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    Sceptic, you don’t know what her questions were to be fair.

    Besides which nobody gives politicians a tough time, Andrew Marr and Paxman are self confessed Tories and everything they do is for show. Paxman is just rude and yet, somehow, that’s confused for being a ‘tough journo’.

    Proper journalists would have stopped the Iraq war before it started, not embedded themselves with the US Marine Corps as it landed enough plutonium on Fallujah to make it glow in the dark.

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  • April 22, 2015 at 1:09 pm
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    Boys…boys…too much hair-pulling going on here. I’d call it a bloody good result. It means great copy and pix – and that’s all that matters.
    Your apology is accepted, now get back to your journalistic Spinning Jenny.

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  • April 22, 2015 at 1:55 pm
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    Now, will i read an unbiased report? Hmmm, i’d like to believe so, but something tells me they won’t be too harsh about the Tory party.

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  • April 22, 2015 at 7:23 pm
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    Here is another from twitter

    Jason Farrell (@JasonFarrellSky)
    22/04/2015 16:52
    Cameraman @rich_peach is taken down by labour press officer as he gets off Miliband’s bus. vine.co/v/eawFB5XBwjh

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  • April 22, 2015 at 11:38 pm
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    Ever since Robin Day was the alleged ‘hard man’ of TV interrogation, I’ve suspected that these spirited face-offs with politicians are merely charades laid on for the muppets – i.e., the viewing public.
    Cameron, Miliband, Paxman, Marr et al are essentially all of the same ilk – the self-serving London political-media ‘elite’ who are doing very nicely, thank you, off the backs of the rest of us. No doubt these so-called bust-ups in front of the cameras are followed by clarets all round down at the Garrick Club.
    The disdain shown for the provincial press is the product of Westminster myopia and sheer ignorance of what goes on in Real Britain – the part which lies beyond the M25 ring fence. It’s only at election time that the politicos deign to wander outside of their cosy compound, so it’s no wonder they are fazed when confronted by proper journalists instead of the usual London media acolytes.
    I hope the Examiner made good use of their interview and put the PM on the rack. Can we see their story, please?

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  • April 23, 2015 at 9:34 am
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    The general public – MUPPETS? Echoes of Nigel ‘I’m a nice cuddly guy, really’ Farage there. Hope you’re not involved in journalism…..

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  • April 23, 2015 at 10:24 am
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    “Proper journalists would have stopped the Iraq war before it started..”
    Really Jeff? And how exactly could they have done that?
    No-one knew 100 per cent whether Saddam had WMD or not so what could ‘proper journalists’ have done to provide definitive proof to demand a halt to the whole thing? Oh and if they couldn’t provide such proof, what then gives journalists (proper or otherwise) the right to overturn Government policy and the will of Parliament because they may not like a decision?
    I was a proud journalist for nearly 30 years but I never thought I had that much power or my opinion was so important.
    Silly me.

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  • April 23, 2015 at 10:30 am
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    Crackington has a point. The London political and media class are all essentially the same breed. Yet hasn’t it always been this way? It’s human nature to want to be part of an elite.

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  • April 23, 2015 at 12:46 pm
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    “I always want to try and give local journalists a fair chance to ask questions and see what we’re up to.”
    So keen, in fact, he was trying to charge them £20 to cover events. Politicians, eh? Don’t you just love them all…

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  • April 23, 2015 at 1:03 pm
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    In response to Kendo, are we suggesting here that ‘elite’ means ‘superior’? The only thing superior about these people is their attitude.
    And, no, I have no desire at all to belong to such a clique.

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  • April 23, 2015 at 1:41 pm
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    I am heading online to see if this vital interview was worth the fuss. My mind is open.

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  • April 23, 2015 at 1:41 pm
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    Well, Crackington, given that they are the ones dictating the nation’s political and media agenda and we’re the ones reduced to ranting impotently on the Internet then, yes, strictly speaking they are superior.

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  • April 23, 2015 at 2:54 pm
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    I do hope the people at the Examiner remembered to tug their collective forelocks at our penitent PM, for graciously granting another photo opportunity.

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  • April 24, 2015 at 12:07 am
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    Don’t think so, Kendo. Politics generally attracts the third-rate. There are exceptions, but not enough to change the rule.

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